Faded glory in its latest iteration, the WRX STI, once
a byword for affordable performance, isn’t nearly as sharp, or cheap, as it
used to be.
Ask a teenaged automotive enthusiast today what his idea of
an affordable performance car is, and the reply you’re likely to get is “VW
Golf GTI”. However, ask the same question just a decade ago, and it’s more than
likely he would have said: “Subaru Impreza WRX STI.”
The world, or Singapore at least, has moved on since the
early 2000s. Skyrocketing COE premiums have seen the balance of power shift
towards premium marques, which means someone out for an affordable performance
car is likely to pick something more upmarket from continental Europe.
The Wrx Sti Has A
Chassis 1.4 Times Stiffer Than That Of A Standard Impreza
Doing the WRX no favours is how, in its previous five-door
hatchback iteration, the car lost plenty of its mojo, and was widely panned by critics
(us included) for having gone fat and soft. This seventh-generation model,
however, is attempting to reclaim some of the street cred it lost since then.
Available only as a four-door saloon, the new WRX STI,
against some of its more beng ancestors, looks rather conservative. It has now
lost the flared wheel arches that used to be a WRX STI hallmark, and
interestingly, the Impreza name has been dropped as well, to better
differentiate the hot WRXs and even-hotter STIs from their more run-of-the-mill
brethren (the rangetopping STI is picked out by its larger wheels and humongous
rear wing).
A little more of note is how the hottest cars of the Impreza
range have a chassis that Subaru says is 1.4 times stiffer than that of
standard Imprezas. This helps to deliver quicker and more linear responses to
steering input, with “agility similar to a Porsche 911”.
To ensure the STI delivers on that claim, Subaru enlisted
the help of fourtime WRC champion and former Subaru rally team driver Tommi
Makinen for the new vehicle’s development. While the Finnish legend said the
new car “could be driven” with one hand, I attempted nothing of the sort during
the WRX STI’s regional launch in Manila, given there’s probably some degree of
disparity between his driving ability and mine.
False friend Cabin
is fairly well assembled, but it flatters to deceive — the carbon fibre trim is
just printed plastic
According to the small mountain of data Subaru threw at us,
the difference between the old and new WRX STI is stark – there’s a 0.1 of a
second delay between steering input and the vehicle generating 0.1 G, versus
the old model taking 0.27 of a second.
But the key thing here is how perceptible the improvement
is. And from the brief spin we took in the new WRX STI, we can say it feels a
good deal more rigid, with greater precision to the steering and even some
fancy electronics that can brake the inside wheel while cornering, for more
agility (it does, after all, have its sights on the 911). Aside from the
newness of the chassis and (Subaru hopes) newfound sense of purpose, the WRX
STI still has the same “heart” – a 2.5-litre flat-4 engine that produces an
unchanged 300bhp and 407Nm. It has a marginally quicker (by 0.1 of a second)
zero-to-100km/h time of 5.1 seconds.
It feels a little more grown up, too – ostensibly a move to
tempt buyers from the European upstarts that have done so much to steal the
STI’s thunder in recent years. Yes, the characteristic boxer burble is still
there, but it’s more muted, though I’m sure some work at the local speed shop
will cure that.
Old faithful The
2.5-litre flat-4 motor is unchanged from before, and produces an identical
300bhp
Harder to cure with aftermarket “surgery” is the interior.
The ergonomics cannot be faulted, but the absence of branded bucket seats (that
is, from Recaro) and the presence of hard, cheap-looking trim, made cheaper
with a faux carbon fibre motif, are a little difficult to accept.
This is especially so since Motor Image wants $199,600 for
it (no thanks in part to a $10,000 CEVS surcharge). For just $800 less at press
time, you could get yourself a VW Golf GTI. Alternatively, you could get
yourself a BMW 220i Coupe or a Mercedes-Benz C180 Coupe for roughly the same
amount as the WRX STI. The German coupes won’t get you to your destination
anywhere as quickly as the WRX STI, but they could certainly do so in more
style.
Despite the new WRX STI being thoroughly decent, it doesn’t
quite match its famous ancestors, because it’s not anywhere near them in terms
of rawness, focus, or bang for the buck. That, and the fact that Subaru won’t
be returning to the top rung of rally racing, with the automaker citing the new
WRX as “too big”, make us question its continued existence in the first place.
Perhaps it should have taken a leaf from Mitsubishi’s book
and quit while the memories were still (mostly) good. The people the WRX STI
once appealed to, the folks familiar with the Kopitiam at “Orchard Gudang”,
have been replaced by a younger group more familiar with the Starbucks at Ion Orchard.
The WRX STI
For the latter set, the famous blue cars driven to glory by
the late Colin McRae and the once-hallowed “Cherry Blossom Red” logo don’t have
quite the same gravitas. This just makes the WRX STI look like a fading rock
star attempting to regain some past glories, and that is just a bit sad.
