Review and photos by Laurance Yap
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Photo Gallery: 2008 Subaru WRX STi
Toronto, Ontario - Since moving downtown a couple of years ago, I haven't been going for drives in the country as much as I used to. It's a long slog up to the 400 from downtown and an even longer slog to cottage country, where I used to enjoy the winding, uneven roads on a regular basis. This is a shame, particularly when one's behind the wheel of a Subaru WRX STi, a car made for carving around winding, sometimes gravel-strewn roads, a car that loves being thrown around in unfamiliar territory. So it was a good thing that some friends had booked a cottage up north for a weekend recently - at the same time that I was behind the wheel of the hottest Subaru yet.
My best-laid plans to leave the city early in the afternoon and beat the rush quickly dissolved with a long Friday at the office and a few last-minute errands to run (who knew I needed a sleeping bag?), so it wasn't until after 10 p.m. that I left Toronto, just in time for a torrential downpour that followed me most of the way up past Barrie, Orillia and Gravenhurst. The STi took it all in stride, of course, its symmetrical all-wheel-drive system seamlessly diverting power to the wheels with the most traction while the powerful headlights and effective windshield wipers kept the view clear and easy despite the appalling conditions.
2008 Subaru WRX STi. Click image to enlarge
Reading the directions I'd printed off from the cottage rental agency, I'd imagined I had a two-hour drive ahead of me, mainly on highways, but it turned out that much of the drive was on gravel roads that snaked up and down the sides of hills in incomprehensible loops and twists. Good thing my STi was fitted with a touch-screen navigation system which assured me I was still on track; otherwise, approaching midnight and with visibility down to almost zero, I probably would have turned around, or at least stopped for the evening.
But with the friendly lady in the dashboard reassuring me that, yes indeed, Midlothian road was just a few more turns away, I pressed on, focusing instead on how much I was enjoying the act of driving the five-door STi in such miserable circumstances. With the high beams blasting through the downpour the entire way, it was a delight to fling between turns, balancing the rear end on the throttle and dabbing the brakes mid-corner to help rotate the car into a bend. Despite the relatively low speeds - at times, it was difficult to maintain a pace that matched the 60 km/h speed limit - the whole experience felt incredibly racy, with the suspension chattering away with details about the road surface, the steering writhing back and forth in my hands, the turbocharged 305-hp engine whistling and popping on the overrun.
2008 Subaru WRX STi. Click image to enlarge
On roads like these, in conditions this terrible, I really felt there was no better car to be in. The STi is as stable as you could hope for, with the security of all-wheel-drive, stability and traction control, giant ABS-supported Brembo disc brakes and big 18-inch Dunlop tires that keep gripping well past where you'd think they'd let go. But it's a ton of fun as well, with enough power and enough edge in the way it goes, stops and handles to be a truly entertaining drive, no matter what the conditions. With the three-step SI-drive engine controller cranked up to Sport Sharp and the electronically-controlled differential set to apportion a majority of the engine's torque to the rear wheels, the STi danced fluidly around corners while still instilling a great deal of confidence.
2008 Subaru WRX STi. Click image to enlarge
With the entire drive to the cottage done in the dark, it was tough to judge the STi's interior other than finding that its thickly-bolstered driver's seat was very comfortable over almost four hours of driving and that its major controls - shifter, pedals, steering wheel - were all exactly where I wanted them and worked with a consistent, even heft. In the bright light the next morning, the overly plasticky nature of the interior (still a major improvement over the previous STi and a darn sight better than the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution's) was more obvious. But even if none of the materials are all that luxurious, with grippy cloth on the seats and low-sheen plastic on the dash and console, everything is nicely screwed together and feels built to last. This is, after all, a Subaru; a car that, with its five-door hatchback configuration and enlarged back seat, still appeals to the practical side of one's brain as well as the driving enthusiast side.
Stickering at over $45,000, the STi isn't cheap - and finds itself up against formidable competition. Mitsubishi's Evo is the most obvious one, of course. Its four-door body is a bit more conventional (though, with its rear wing, more obvious too) but it offers a different balance of driving thrills than the STi. From the instant power delivery of its engine (there's none of the turbo lag you get in the Subaru) to the jittery ride quality to the super-fast steering, the Evo is an edgy, almost nervous car. It feels purposefully unstable where the Subaru feels well-planted; it's more fun in small doses but a little more difficult, thanks to more road and wind noise, to live with as a daily driver. The Evo's one trump card is its available TC-SST twin-clutch transmission, which comes standard on the $48,000 MR trim level: its sequential shifts are always perfect and the high-tech gearbox really gives the Mitsubishi the feel of a car from the future, with its automatic throttle-blipping and seamless gear changes.
2008 Subaru WRX STi. Click image to enlarge
Both Mitsubishi and Subaru are also hoping to draw some buyers out of mid-$40,000 four-door sedans from more prestigious brands like Audi, BMW and Infiniti, luring them with the promise of vastly elevated performance with only a small sacrifice in refinement and technology. And, indeed, both the Evo and STi offer such niceties as a touch-screen navigation system, satellite radio, auxiliary input, on-board music server and the usual array of power assists for the windows and mirrors. But if you're looking for luxury or refinement, you're not going to find it here.
While the STi's exterior styling has been quite toned down from the previous version - it's now a hatchback instead of a sedan and there's no huge rear wing towering out over the rear - its look is still pretty menacing. The fenders are flared aggressively to cover the 18-inch BBS alloys, there's a rear diffuser that wraps around four fat exhaust pipes, and in some colours you also get Subaru's signature gold wheels. In short, it's a car that doesn't look as expensive as it is. Which is kind of the point of the whole car, really: what you're paying for is not there on the surface like it is on so many pricey cars: it's not the badge or the slickness that are the reason this car is expensive. What you're paying for, where the value is, is the engineering underneath.
