There are quite a few cars out on the market that can give you as many qualities as the Subaru Impreza WRX STI does. Granted, it doesn’t look as glamorous as its European equivalents, but it’s four-door sedan with four-wheel drive, 300 bhp engine, fantastic handling, uncanny quality, and lots of equipments, all in a very well priced package, and it looks very cool and discrete. What else do you want from a car?! I would buy this over a 3-Series Bimmer or C-Class Merc in a heartbeat.
The new 2011 model which can now be ordered in UK from just £32,995, offers the same features but in a better way and higher level. In response to significant market demand the four-door saloon version of the Subaru WRX STI is once again available, after an absence of three years, going on sale alongside the regular hatchback variant.
The 2011 WRX STI comes with the same 2.5-litre Subaru boxer 16-valve turbo engine with Dual Active Valve Control produces 300ps at 6,000rpm and massive torque – with a peak of 407Nm at 4,000rpm – tweaked for faster acceleration (0 to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds) and covering Euro 5 standards.
The new model gets a Spec-C suspension which in brief means even more precise handling, thanks to lower ride height and wider tyres. The more rigid bodyshell has also made it possible to increase suspension travel, benefiting road-holding as well as ride refinement. An all-new design of wheel saves approximately two kilograms of un-sprung weight per corner compared to the outgoing model, helping to further improve ride and handling, as well as enhancing the car’s appearance.
Standard equipment includes keyless entry, push-button start, front log lamps, hill start assist, climate control air-conditioning, remote central locking, electric windows front and rear, an all-new radio-CD unit with a 10-speaker audio system, AUX and USB input jacks, hands-free Bluetooth system and cruise control.
And here’s some technical and rather boring info on the car’s great AWD system:
Central to the agile handling of Subaru vehicles is the company’s legendary Symmetrical AWD (All-Wheel drive) system. This consists of the horizontally-opposed boxer engine, with its intrinsic low centre of gravity, combined with advanced AWD technology incorporating sophisticated front, centre and rear differentials. For the new WRX STI the system has been uprated, with revised settings for the differentials.
The car features a default setting of 41 / 59 per cent front / rear torque distribution for optimum balance, and the driver can adjust this while on the move using the four-mode (Driver’s Control Centre Differential) system. The WRX STI also incorporates Multi-Mode VDC (Vehicle Dynamics Control) – Subaru’s advanced electronic stability control (ESC), allowing the driver to modify the point of intervention of this electronic driver aid to suit their own tastes or driving conditions.
In order to develop a vehicle that provides exceptional levels of high performance and precision handling, together with user-friendly daily motoring driveability on demand, Subaru has further tuned its three-mode SI-Drive (Subaru Intelligent Drive) system, which can be used to adjust the engine’s characteristics to best suit a variety of driving conditions.
