By AARON COLE
Managing Editor, MediaOne Utah
Thank a crazy person.
Do it now.
If it weren’t for window-licking, lead-footed crazy folks who demand cars be made of Kleenex and powered by Typhoon-class submarine nuclear reactors, Subaru wouldn’t have a market for their 2011 Impreza WRX STI.I want to shake every one of their physically restrained hands.
In the interest of full disclosure, Subaru shipped a handful of equally insane journalists to Aspen, Colo., to unveil the newly redesigned STI and experience its full dementia at altitude. Then, a couple weeks later, I took the same STI down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to see if Hannibal Lecter could play nice in high society.
Call it the most expensive, extensive mental health test ever given to an automobile. Results to follow.
First, let’s get underneath the STI’s skin.
This year, the souped-up Impreza STI distinguishes itself even further from the mainstream Subaru offerings in an effort to capture the spirit of its intended audience. The 2011 STI keeps the same 305-horsepower, turbocharged engine as last year. Indeed, the STI shares the same engine as the less powerful WRX, but the two engines are far from twins.
What underscores the difference between driving the STI and the more restrained WRX is the combination of Subaru’s Vehicle Dynamics Control and Driver Controlled Center Differential that offer no fewer than 15 different combinations for total road control.
Spelled out in plainer terms, the STI has two knobs and switches the WRX doesn’t that deliver boost and center differential settings like meds from Nurse Ratched.
And there are marked differences between the three settings found on the VDC. The first “Intelligent” setting allows the STI to pass for a normal sedan while “Sport” ups the ante with earlier boost and more throttle response and the final “Sport Sharp” setting easily supplants morning coffee.
In Aspen, with the “Sport Sharp” setting engaged, traction control off and center differential set to kill, the 2011 STI laid down lap times like it was on fire.
For instance, my co-driver for the day, Yoichi Hori, a Subaru engineer and fantastic driver shook the wheel nuts loose going through slalom cones. If that wasn’t enough, Norwegian rally teacher John Haugland helped me find religion quicker as he threw the STI in and out of corners. In summary, to say that the STI is a street legal racecar is an understatement — the STI is a street legal rocket.
The STI’s track prowess also underscores Subaru’s other key suspension upgrade over last year, which took 30 minutes to digest in a conference room.
Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: the 2011 STI has better bushings over last year, which means reduced roll in the corners and a flatter, more grippier bottom in hard driving. Subaru offered a back-to-back comparison with the 2010 model and sure enough, the new model lives up to their hype.
But who has the gumption to actually test the STI’s mettle and race-inspired gee whiz? After all, only about 10 percent of Impreza buyers opt for the STI, and of those 10 percent, who’s brave enough to throw the STI in and out of corners?
Actually, quite a lot of folks if you believe Subaru.
According to a Subaru spokesman, the average STI buyer is affluent (read: rich) and well versed with the STI’s racing pedigree. In fact, they say, the STI buyer may be someone who just realized that the Ferrari 458 Italia they just purchased won’t make grocery store trips like they thought. Or something like that.
So, in an effort to test that theory, two weeks later I paraded the 2011 STI on glitz and glamour’s ground zero: Rodeo Drive.
Here, according to Subaru, the STI would be among six-figure compatriots. There may be more Ferraris per square mile in Beverly Hills than there are in Maranello.
Does it turn heads?
Kinda, I suppose.
For a car that starts around $34,000, it was a little hard to take away attention from cars that cost more than a house — but the STI held its own.
From the outside the STI with its wide rear wing, menacing fascia and wide track stance, definitely makes an impression. Heck, the four exhaust pipes protruding out of the back of the STI is the same number as a Lamborghini’s right?
Although it may not win a beauty contest against six-figure speed machines, the STI is a good looker. And this year’s addition of a four-door sedan alongside the five-door hatchback gives buyers another flavor to ponder.
Personally, I like the four-door sedan version and I’m hoping that Subaru makes available in coming years the blue paint/gold wheel rally combo that made Subaru rally cars famous in the 1990s.
But the Rodeo Drive jaunt also makes an important point.
The STI teeters on the edge of being too complex, too stiff and too fast to drive everyday. The insane capabilities of this year’s symmetrical all wheel drive maniac are almost too much for anyone to handle — I said almost.
The STI accelerates like it broke out of Bellevue. I takes a corner like it’s running away from the orderlies.
Someone check the psych ward, I think they may be missing a patient.
Aaron Cole is a syndicated auto columnist and managing editor of MediaOne of Utah, and has driven hundreds of new cars — but only briefly. By most accounts he is wrong and has proudly been banned on Internet message boards. Send complaints, compliments or supplemental income to aaron.m.cole@gmail.com.
Tags: Aaron Cole
