Finally America doesnt have to just watch Europe and Japan

Every kid wants one, no one under the age of 40 can normally afford one, but yet, we all seem to still have this desire and hope that some day we will get one. No, I’m not talking about a wife, I’m talking about the Subaru Impreza WRX.
I have been lucky and managed to get my hands on one. With a little wheeling and dealing, and the British touch, I am now the proud owner of a 2003 WRX. Being the US version, it’s not quite up to spec with the WRX I know from the UK and Japan, but its still on the right track

So the WRX. It’s been a while since I wrote a review on Epinions, heck its been a year or 2 it seems, so I may be a little rusty, but I will try and remember how I do it.

First a little history lesson and some general information on Subaru themselves. Pay attention, there will be a test on it later.

Subaru, I think everyone knows. They have their hands in most things from rally to town cars, however they manage all this with quite a small range of cars, when compared to other manufacturers. The Impreza, Legacy, Outback and Forester. That’s it for Subaru’s range. In the US they also have the Baja, which is meant to be a Pick-up truck, but is really a Forester with the back half of the roof chopped off, and isn’t much use as a truck, or much use worrying about in this opinion.
So, what makes Subaru manage to be so popular with such a small range?
Well, their rally history is a key factor. They are famous for their AWD (All Wheel Drive) system, plus they have a habit of always coming up one above the competition, as they can concentrate more on the few cars they have, instead of having to worry about loads of different models.
Subaru is part of Fuji Heavy Industries, in Japan. They do a lot of other stuff like aerospace, buses etc, but Subaru is what we all know.
The Impreza hit the streets in around 1994 I think, over in Europe, and probably earlier than that in Japan, and was available with Turbo pretty quickly after that. It became popular very quickly, due to the Rally heritage and the fact, Subaru managed to overcome a number of feats in order to produce a car that out did the competition.
However, while the rest of the world was enjoying the WRX, the poor American drivers had to sit on the sidelines and watch. Subaru didn’t release the WRX until very recently, around 2001 I believe, in the US, and then the version then did release was scaled down from what the rest of the world got. Smaller brakes, less Horsepower, and Worse economy, but still put a car that America hadn’t seen before, on the market.
The 4-cylinder boxer engine itself was a clever idea. Not found in cars, even today, other than exotic cars such as the Porsche. Then managing to fit a Turbo to this set up, and the engineering needed to get the exhaust to the turbo and all the stuff that goes with it, meant they produced a high performance sports car, with the refinements of a family car, but a price tag that didn’t make it exotic.

So, the car. Start with the Engine.
The Impreza comes with 3 set ups. RS, WRX and the WRX Sti. RS has since been split up into the TS and the GX. For purposes of ease of writing, I am going to refer to these as the RS. Which are naturally aspirated engines
WRX is the star of the range, with its 2.0 Turbo charged engine.
Sti is the rally car of the roads. Probably as close to a rally car as you can get, and still be street legal, running a 2.5 turbo engine, with a bigger turbo than the WRX, bigger intercooler and lots of nice little toys that make it a great, fast car, but often out of most peoples price range, and really for those who want a sports car, and can afford it without worrying about it. Other independent versions of the WRX are around. For instance Prodrive UK version, which is tuned by Prodrive UK, that are responsible for the Rally car, but these generally stay over in Europe and Japan, and don’t find their way into the States.
We are talking about the WRX though. So. To give the engine its full technical name, it runs a 2.0litre turbo charged 4 cylinder, horizontally opposed engine. What makes this such a great set up, is the engine being laid down on its side lowers the center of gravity of the car, thus improves front end stability, better than a standard inline 4 cylinder engine. For those who may not be up to speed on this, the simplest way to describe it is a V6 engine, which has been flattened. In this case it would be a V4, but its been flattened out flat, with 2 cylinders on each side. I don’t know if the setup gives a performance advantage, but it does give a handling advantage.

It sports a top mounted intercooler, which cools the air being drawn into the engine, giving more power. Turbo is mounted on the side, and contains all sorts of new designed hoses and exhausts in order to do this, but works very well, if not making it a bit harder to work on for the home mechanic.
Air enters the engine via a front mounted air dam hidden by the hood and grille when on the road, but this can be replaced with a Cold air induction system, with the filter located in the fender, giving much better air flow and colder air, since air vents are already built into the bumper to feed it.
There are a number of technology advances, on this engine, which although, not all are unique to the Impreza, but all together make it a unique engine. Things such as the ignition coils mounted directly to the spark plugs, eliminating HT leads and such, giving a bigger spark. Other things such as multi port injection, tumble port intake manifolds, DOHC set up, all this adds up to what makes it a great powerful car.

Performance has to be mentioned.
The WRX pumps out 221HP, which for a 4 cylinder, is a respectable amount of power by any ones standards.
You can see 60 from a standing start in around 5.4seconds. If you go for the short throw shifter option and learn the car well, it is easy to shave this time a little bit more.
If you ever had the option to open this thing up, it will see you to around 145mph, but the engine is limited by the ECU, so its true top speed, I don’t know.

To put this into perspective, for those who find this hard to believe.
The Jaguar XK8 4 litre, does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds,
BMW Z4 roadster does in around 7seconds, depending on engine size, quickest being the 3litre top end model which does 5.8seconds.
The 2.5 Porsche Boxster see 0-60 in 7.4seconds, with the 3.2 litre seeing 6.3 seconds.

That should give you an idea of just how quick this car is. The Sti will compete against pretty much anything you put it against and stand a chance.

The main place the WRX suffers a little is through the AWD system, which eats up Horse power, more than a 2wheel drive system does, but it does give the car almost perfect acceleration, with very little, if any, wheel spin.

The gearbox is a very nice box. Gears are smooth, but positive, and its possible to do rapid gear changes, to aid in that hull shot. It can take a beating, and keep on ticking, however, regular drag strip use will wear it out quite fast, as dropping the clutch with the turbo spooled up and engine revved up at around 5000 rpm suddenly dumps all 221horse power into that drive train, and it wont take it to much, This car is not a 1/4mile racer, its designed as a rally car or circuit racing, if you want to race it.

Handling:
It handles like it is on rails. The AWD makes it great on twisty roads, giving maximum traction, but yet is forgiving enough that if you really want a taste of rally driving, and have somewhere to do it, you can get the back end out for some power-sliding action, and still remain in control.
Most of the time, when I talk about handling of a car, I concentrate on how it handles everyday driving. But with the WRX, everyday driving is not all it has. This car really comes to life when you take it off the highways roads, and take it onto the “noways”. It’s no off road Jeep. It won’t get you to the top of Everest, but it will give you a lot of fun off road as well as on. Its low center of gravity helps it keep pointing the right direction when the surface may not be ideal, gravel, snow etc. You can take a bend faster, without the roll and high center of gravity, found in 4x4 off road vehicles, causing the car to slide. I finally had a chance to take it out in the snow, and where as before I would have to check the road surface, make sure the car could do it. Fighting for grip on hills, taking bends as slow as possible to avoid spinning out. With this, it wasn’t a problem. AWD gave it more than enough grip to cope with the 2 or 3 inches of snow it had to deal with, only thing letting it down for grip was the all season tires. Never got stuck. Following people in rear wheel drive cars snaking up the road, and front wheel drive cars under steering on bends. I only had one slip, and that was over a bridge that was solid ice. All 4 wheels started spinning and it started to slide slightly, but was under control, and was never a danger.

Overall, if you like to drive, and want more from a car than just going fast down the Interstate, or racing the 1/4mile at a drag strip, then this car will give you what you want, in terms of handling.

Suspension is stiff, but not uncomfy. Roll is minimal in cornering, but potholes don’t jar your back. They have hit the perfect compromise between handling and comfort. It isn’t especially low, so ground clearance isn’t a problem, however it is worth investing in the rear differential protector if you are going off road.

The chassis is built strong. It uses the same design and engineering they use for their rally car, so it is stiff and strong. No strut braces in the front or rear, which maybe it could do with, and like all manufacturers, they have gone for the cheaper, rubber, bushings and engine mounts, which would have been better to charge a couple extra bucks for the car and fitted some better stiffer mounts and bushings, but this is easily solved by aftermarket parts.

Exterior.
The 2002 and 2003 are what have become known as the “bug eye”. Taking on the big roundish headlights. I prefer them to the newer 2004 headlights, personally, but people will differ I'm sure.
The car looks like the car most boys used to draw on the back of their text books in class. Big wheels, sleek curves, and to quote a car program I watched over here, “has a hood scoop bigger than most top fuel drag racers and a spoiler that will help a 747 jet take off!”
The bonnet scoop gives it a very aggressive look. And actually functions. Most of the time they are just for looks, and don’t actually serve a purpose, but on this car, it serves a big purpose and shovels a lot of air onto that top mounted intercooler, which in turn gives you more power, physics says so, so just believe it. The great thing about the WRX is, even if you cant afford the Sti, nearly all of the Sti parts will bolt straight onto the WRX with little or no modification. So you can buy a Sti hood scoop, which is even bigger and bolt it straight on without having to take a jigsaw and drill to your hood.
The front end is also aggressive. With the typical big round fog lights mounted back in the bumper, a feature the 2004 version got rid of, which I think was a mistake, as the WRX has always had those big rally style fog lights, and are a feature I think it should have kept, but obviously the marketing people at Subaru think different. It is worth investing in some fog light covers off the Sti or if you use them a lot, some of the mesh covers, as they are prone to stone damage being so low and so big, and aren’t a cheap part to replace.
Moving back the car curves well, everything looking like it is supposed to be that way, with a simple, but yet effective side skirts, which are usually black, and I don’t know why they didn’t colour code them. The back end is as aggressive as the front. The taillights are big, and obvious, but yet not too in your face. The spoiler is big, but yet doesn’t get in the way with vision out the back. LED stop light in the spoiler finishes it off. However the spoiler is an optional extra I think on a lot of models, and if you have one put on, you will then have a 3rd brake light in the back window which renders it useless. So removing the bulb from that stop light will aid you in night driving as the reflection of this off the spoiler can be distracting, depending on the colour of your car.
The alloy wheels suit the car well, and although may not be to everyone’s taste, I think they are fine, and I wont be rushing out to replace them, until I can afford the Prodrive gold wheels.
Overall, this car looks like it is meant to go fast. No part of this car says wimp. I have been followed by some and they look quite intimidating in the rear view mirror, especially at night with the fog lights on. People often move over. It definitely turns heads no question. Even before we added the rally graphics and such to ours, we would be making enemies with the local boy racers as their girlfriends look at my car and one time 1 even said to him, why don’t you have a car like that? I left before it got ugly….

Interior
Interior is surprisingly well layed out. Again Subaru hit the mark with compromising sports car looks to practicality. The front bucket seats are comfy, not to short, hold you nicely, but are accommodating enough for even the slightly larger than average driver.
Pedals on the WRX are alloy with grips in them, and well spaced so you can drive it without worrying about catching 2 pedals at once, but yet close enough that if you are into the hard driving (legal of course) you can heel and toe it. The clutch pedal is stiff, and feels heavy, but it needs to be to cope with the large amount of horsepower your dumping through it. Hydraulic clutch does ease the strain a little, and bites about half way down which makes for a faster gear change and less effort.
Dashboard is well layed out too. Everything you need to know is within sight. Big speedo in the middle of the Dash, with the rev counter and gauges each side of it. The steering wheel is adjustable for the shorter people out there.
The turbo boost gauge doesn’t come as standard I believe, but is well worth the extra few bucks to have put on. It mounts on the steering column and sometimes does restrict view to the rev counter, but isn’t a big problem. Its much nicer and better to have a factory installed one fitted, as it matches the rest of the car well, where as often, aftermarket ones will require special gauge pods and its hard to find one that matches. Another optional extra is the center gauge pod, which replaces the standard clock in the dashboard. It houses 3 gauges, for turbo, oil pressure and battery I believe. Its quite expensive and is really more for looks than anything, but does make an ideal base for future stereo upgrade to DVD players or for aftermarket gauges you might want to fit.
Headroom is plenty. The roof lining is thin, much thinner than normal, and although makes it a bit noisier when it rains, it does increase the head room that little bit more. The cockpit roof is high right through to the back, so even in the back you have plenty of head room. I’m 6foot and I have no problems what so ever.
Legroom again is fine in the front, with the seat back. If you want people in the back, you will need to move the seats forward, if they are older children or adults, and this can make for cramp conditions up front, as the dashboard comes down quite low. An option to turn off the passenger side airbag would be useful here.
Rear space is actually quite good for a car like this. It is possible to fit a large adult in the back, without needing to be double jointed. Being a 4 door makes getting in and out easy.
One thing I will say against this car is the lack of fold down function on the rear seats. You can’t fold them down to increase trunk space. So the only access you have from the rear is through the armrest that folds down revealing a plastic cover that also folds down to reach into the trunk, but being able to fold the back seats down would have been useful.
They have thought of everything really in this car. Simple little touches that set it apart. The OS bars as they are known, or grab handles above the doors, push in flat when not in use. Meaning you don’t crack your head on them as you get out. The dashboard mounted drink holder that pops out when you push it, is a nifty little function and makes use of what would have been wasted space, and is strong enough to hold even a large McDonalds coke.
The center console is a good height to actually work as an armrest without smacking your elbow on it when changing gear, and if you go for the armrest extension, which adds another compartment on top of it, makes an ideal place for phones, sunglasses etc.

The stereo system is nothing to get excited about. Typical Japanese quality in the stereo. It is very well featured, 6disc changer, built into the dash which is very useful and easy to use, and for the average driver who just wants the radio when driving the interstate, the stereo system isn’t bad. But if you want something a little special from your stereo, your not going to get it in the WRX. The Subaru premium stereo upgrade is available, which puts a sub speaker under the seat and upgrades the door speakers, but it is expensive and to be honest, for the amount you would pay to have that fitted, you could buy a very good aftermarket system. Its $700 for the stereo upgrade, for the same money I replaced the door speakers, fitted 2 10inch JL Audio subwoofers, and amplifier and a Sony stereo system, which not only looks much much better, but actually makes listening to music nice.

Air conditioning blows very cold, and is very nice on that hot day in the summer, it really affects your MPG though.

The clock is pretty useless. It’s very hard to see being set back in the dashboard like that, during the day, and I think was added just to fill an empty space more than anything. Electric windows and mirrors, all 4 windows with control from the drivers door is useful and a nice feature, as well as being able to turn off control to all window switches, for when the kids start acting up.
Remote central locking is nice, alarm is worth investing in, if buying from a dealer, but as an after thought, is an expensive piece of equipment, and would be better going aftermarket for the alarm.
Remote trunk release and fuel door release is nice, and means you can stay in the car when picking up the wife from shopping and its raining.

Modification potential
Yes as usual, this part is not every ones essential information, but none the less, is for some people, including myself
As I said before, nearly all the parts off the Sti will fit the WRX, from the larger intercooler to the huge rear spoiler.
Performance modifications are a plenty, with no end of parts you can fit. It is very easy to tune these cars to 300hp + without making it look far from standard. Exhaust and induction system upgrade are an easy and effective start. K&N induction system is expensive, but releases the true sound of the engine, which is unique to the “boxer engine” Just removing the silencer on the intake system will give you that sucking noise and hiss as the bypass valve goes off, lets people next to you know, your turbo charged and not afraid to use it.
Subaru really built this car with modifications in mind. Even simple things like fitting a new stereo is easy. Running large power wires from the battery into the car is easy and no drilling is required at all. They even put a firewall grommet below the main access for the wiring loom, which you can run much larger wires through and still maintain a water tight seal and neat standard finish, without having to drill holes, cable tie up wires etc, all wires run through the fenders and behind the dash out the way.
No end of parts available for this car, allowing you to easily make your car unique and personal. I am going for the rally car look myself, with the rally graphics, roof scoop etc and not changing the body itself much with body kits, but for those who like the big, wide, body kits, there are plenty of very nice ones around.
These cars have been around for a long time in the UK and in Japan. The girls and boys in the UK know how to modify these cars, and its worth checking out some UK websites and just seeing what is possible with this car, as well as tweaks people have learnt over the years to make them a bit better. The engine grounding modification for instance is a cheap modification that makes a difference.

Overall:
Overall, this car is a must have. It does everything you could want from a car.
I watched a Car magazine show the other day that took 50 cars, and with their own opinions and readers votes, picked out 1 top car. The WRX came out on top with flying colours. And beat off competition in the form of the new BMW, new Audi, even the new Porsche, which considering this was voted by American readers, where the bigger the V8 the better, and this is a Japanese 2litre, was quite a feat in itself.
This car has power, comfort, handling, and practicality, all built into it. It’s hard to find bad points about the car. Only bad point is its price tag. However, in a way, that is a good thing, as it helps keep the cars status symbol, and appeal.
Not especially insurance friendly, especially for the younger drivers,
Subaru have done a good job here, and managed to secure a number of markets in one car. I never thought I would ever go Japanese, but in this case, I think it was a good choice.
So, the big question I’m sure everyone has is. Which is better, the WRX or the Mitsubishi Evo? As that is its only real competitor, no one else can come close to matching it. Answers on a postcard please….