Hot Rod Time Machine

MANILA, Philippines - There was a time, say 10 to 15 years ago, when a Japanese sedan sporting gigantic scoops, flares, wings, and a turbocharger would have evinced snickers and guffaws from the more genteel sports car set with their “no replacement for displacement” mantra.

How times change. Today a car costing a third the price of a Porsche can put out just as much power, have more grip in the dry and in the wet, and be as insanely fun to drive. Yes, the Impreza STi looks crude next to a Cayman, but that’s just part of the fun: an otherwise ordinary family car injected with an audacious amount of plutonium and steroids to make it one of the fastest cars you really could drive every day. To work. To the supermarket. To the Sunday brunch up in Tagaytay. All the way to the northernmost tip of Luzon and back to Davao.

As Subaru’s most outrageous offering, the STi gets the full Monty treatment: high compression 2.5-liter flat-four, turbocharged and intercooled, Brembo brakes, 18-inch wheels, quad tailpipes, and a sophisticated center differential you can program to vary the front-rear torque split.

True to form, the boosted flat-4 makes an impressive 300 horsepower at 300 lb-ft of torque. So, that should mean it’s a beast to drive, right? Actually, no. Perhaps in a bid to make the STi a more usable animal, it actually feels as docile as a garden variety Impreza below 2,000 rpm. The compliant suspension feels positively soft compared to the more hard core setup of, say, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X or even the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Bumps and road rumbles are smoothly absorbed by the chassis; they’re not exactly smothered up, but only the big ones will jar your spine.

With the “SI-Drive” throttle setting on “Intelligent”, you’re essentially in fuel saver mode as a tiny green arrow lights up on the dash to remind you to upshift early before the turbo boost kicks in. Feather the throttle, diligently short shift and keep using the 6th gear whenever you can and you’ll get a fair 8 to 9 kpl in light to moderate traffic.

Which is not to say that you’re going slow. Even at low revs the STi makes a fair amount of torque, enabling stress-free passing and highway cruising. The cabin is also remarkably free of wind and road noise despite the wide body fender work, aero bits, and wide tires. And despite the bad boy look of those lovely quad tailpipes, they actually produce a mellow engine note that lets you stealthily slip by snooty neighborhoods who frown at noisy rice rockets.

Now, why would a sporty car buyer be interested in saving fuel? Easy: the more fuel you save in mindless driving, the more fuel you can play with when the open road beckons. It’s worth the trouble, because the moment you go into Fast Forward mode, all 300 horses move the car with a zeal that’s quite simply addictive. With the SI-Drive mode in “Sport” or “Sport Sharp”, throttle response becomes near instantaneous, the exhaust note turns into a burly roar the higher you go up the rev range, and a big red upshift light cues you at 4,000 rpm to start thinking about the next gear. Any doubts about the soft suspension are pretty much erased, too, so long as you’re on a typical set of switchbacks or mountain road. Grip is phenomenal and the steering is nearly as precise as a BMW’s. More experienced drivers can also play around with the center differential setting to get more power oversteer. With the latter on “Auto” mode, the car understeers at the limit.

Hardcore drivers may also opt to upgrade the suspension with firmer springs and dampers for serious track time, but the stock suspension is a perfect compromise between performance and comfort. You can spend a day driving this car hard and feel none the worse for wear.

Now, here’s the thing: many sports cars are fast. Indeed, many others are faster than the STi. But few can match the STi’s swiftness in inclement weather or less-than-perfect roads. As luck would have it, Mother Nature gave me the perfect test drive weather with bouts of pouring rain. At night, with pitch black visibility and rain pelting the windshield, the STi’s rally heritage pulled through with the powerful HID lamps and foglamps piercing the darkness and the all-wheel drive gripping the slick roads with a confidence you can’t find in many other sports cars.

Over the four days of my test drive, the car had me venturing out into the hills and valleys outside of Metro Manila, free of urban gridlock and losing all sense of time as I got to enjoy every bit of the STi’s supremely usable performance.

For the sedan’s P2,448,000 asking price, not much really needs improvement. The front sport seats seem to be fitted for, ah, wider drivers than I as I found myself moving around in them too much. A proper lumbar support would also have been nice to prevent slouching. As aesthetics go, despite the STi’s extroverted exterior, like all other Subarus it has a gray-and-black interior that’s easy to clean but not really easy on the eyes. Apart from the large, red-lit instrument gauges that give you a vintage fighter plane feel, the rest of the cabin is mainstream Japanese car with occasionally chintzy plastic accents.

Finally, they really need to upgrade the stereo, which sounds tinny for a high-end variant. Details like these sort of tell you all the money really goes to the parts that make the car go zoom.

For all that, the STi is now available with a usable trunk that should finally appease all those Impreza fans who didn’t really like the 5-door that first came here. It’s not a huge trunk, but it’s useful. The floor is pretty high to make room for the full-size spare tire, but nonetheless it swallowed my luggage for an overnight trip: wheel bags, three large gym bags, and one medium-sized plastic box.

Let’s see: room for five, enough performance to satisfy most driving enthusiasts and function as a springboard for all those tuners out there, and an otherwise docile nature that only turns up the heat when you ask it to? An STi will never be Euro smooth, but every second spent in one is simply electrifying.

The Good

• Supple ride.

• Scintillating performance.

• Extroverted aesthetic.

• And it’s reasonably fuel efficient if you can tame your right foot.

The Bad

• Plain interior.

• Loose-fit front seats.

The Verdict

• A high performance sedan that won’t beat you up while you play.