First Drive: 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STI – Return of the wing

By most accounts, something went awry while Subaru was baking the last generation Impreza WRX STI. Maybe someone slipped in an extra cup of civility or forgot to add enough dashes of hardcore, but what was once little more than a thinly-disguised rally stage escapee had come out of the oven a little weaker than its predecessor. Subaru itself diplomatically admits that the priorities for the last generation STI were somewhat different from the 2011 model. The company stripped the line down to just the five-door hatchback in 2008, stressing functionality over style, and the whole recipe simply felt less focused than what we had come to expect from Japan’s all-wheel drive hero.

But that was then, and this is now. The company assures us that for 2011, we can expect a return to the fundamentals that helped establish the STI as a force to be reckoned with. Though the drivetrain remains unchanged, a slew of suspension adjustments and a lower stance have given the STI the ability to hoover up tarmac and gravel stages indiscriminately once again. It isn’t a completely new generation – more like a much needed do-over – but the changes are enough to make the 2011 model instantly recognizable from behind the wheel.

If that’s not enough to convince you, allow us to direct your attention to the rear of the resurrected four-door body style, dominated once again by the kind of spoiler that could double as a civil engineering exercise. Yeah, baby. The STI is back, and on more than just a wing and a prayer.

As we said earlier, the drivetrain is a direct carryover from 2010, though you won’t hear us complain. At 305 horsepower and 290 pound-feet of torque, the turbocharged 2.5-liter flat four-cylinder has no problem mustering up jackhammer levels of commotion. Bolted to an excellent six-speed manual transmission and one very adjustable interpretation of the Subaru all-wheel drive system, the go bits can launch all 3,384 pounds of four-door to 60 mph in a scant 4.9 seconds. Driver’s unfamiliar with the turbo Subaru philosophy will likely notice a hefty touch of turbo lag, but it wasn’t enough to concern us, especially considering how often we kept the tach pointed due north. Surprisingly enough, the sedan’s aerodynamics allow it to carry a top speed of 158 mph – three mph faster than the hatch.

Don’t think that Subaru has simply dropped a hotter drivetrain and a reworked suspension into the WRX and called it a day, though. The engineers claim that both the sedan and hatch STI platforms are vastly stiffer than their WRX counterparts, thanks largely to a number of high-tensile steel reinforcements sprinkled through the structure to help it handle the extra horsepower. That means that even if you managed to swap all of the necessary STI hardware into a WRX after the two had left the factory, the latter still wouldn’t be as quick as the former around your favorite road course. [Continue at Autoblog]

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Posted by L_A on Jul 20 2010. Filed under Auto/Moto, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry