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2018 Subaru WRX Drivers' Notes | Turbo traditionalist

Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore: The Subaru Impreza WRX is one of my favorite enthusiast sedans. It's invigorating, just a bit raw and makes you want to drive it more and more. Our tester has subtle blue paint and aggressive black wheels, which strike the right tone. It's sporty without being stupid. Inside is black leather, red stitching, and plastics that are decent, or at least non-offensive. Good looking car, overall. I was excited for my one-night stint in the WRX. I blitzed home, dashing in and out of traffic in the lower gears. This thing is like a hovercraft, and with the windows down and the engine growling and buzzing, I made record time. The steering is tight, the clutch engagement is heavy, and the brakes have just the right amount of pedal depth. I felt focused and in control. I've always felt the WRX is the right Impreza for me. The STI is awesome, but unusable for many everyday driving experiences. I could live with the WRX longterm, and love it. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Associate Editor Joel Stocksdale: If you've ever lamented that turbo cars don't feel like turbo cars anymore, you should check out a WRX. Its 2.0-liter turbocharged flat-four definitely takes a page from the peaky boosted beasts of the past. Driven at low rpms and gently enough that boost still builds, the turbo is laggy and takes a while to hit peak boost. This means that in mild driving, you'll be just shy of the speed limit when the turbo whacks you in the back, and you'll have to jump back off the accelerator just a moment later. But the rush of the turbo kicking in is still pretty entertaining, and a unique feeling that has been engineered out of a lot of other turbo cars. If you drive the WRX hard, though, the turbo engine becomes much easier to work with. The lag disappears, and the turbo spools right up. But you do have to be running the boxer right up close to redline to keep it responsive. These characteristics aren't something I personally enjoy. But the way the rest of the WRX drives is spot on for me. The steering is weighted nicely, and the car is very responsive. It also feels quite neutral, much more so than even good front-drive and front-biased all-wheel-drive cars. There's a bit of lean, but the chassis is always composed and communicative. And the benefit of the slightly roll-y suspension is that the WRX has impressive ride quality.

Subaru uses a mime and a toy car to explain why it loves the boxer engine

I will freely admit to struggling with why Subaru continues to stubbornly employ a boxer engine design while so few other automakers do the same. After all, with twice the number of cylinder heads and cams as a traditional inline four-cylinder engine, a boxer four is more complex, more expensive to manufacture and more cumbersome to service with few tangible benefits. Until recently, the company's engines struggled to meet the fuel economy numbers of its competitors while offering no real boon in horsepower or torque. Subaru seems to recognize I'm not the only one scratching my head.
In order to help us non-believers understand what's what, the company has employed a pair of mimes, a toy car and a few clay engines to demonstrate the folly of every other automaker on the planet. Subaru says the boxer offers up a lower center of gravity than either an inline four-cylinder engine or a V6, which I will gladly concede. The company also says the design offers up smoother operation.
I'll offer just two counterpoints here. First, an engine with a low center of gravity is excellent, but when vehicles like the Forester, XV Crosstrek and Outback boast more ground clearance than most mainstream SUVs, that argument flies out the window. Second, anyone who's spent any amount of time behind the wheel of a vehicle equipped with an inline four and then proceeded to move into one propelled by a boxer can tell you the latter has all of the idling manners of a small tractor. Check out the video below to see for yourself.

Subaru will show a WRX STI Type RA, possibly with a BRZ STI, on June 8

Subaru just released another teaser photo today of a World Rally Blue STI model, and they also provided us with some information about what the car is. Apparently it is a new WRX STI Type RA, a name that Subaru fans will recognize as an indication of an ultra-hardcore version of the all-wheel-drive legend. As you can see from the teaser photo, this Type RA will have a carbon fiber roof without a sunroof. This WRX STI has more than that, though. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. According to Subaru, the rear wing will also be carbon fiber, and the car will have gold-colored forged BBS wheels measuring 19 inches in diameter. Inside, occupants will find Recaro seats. Mechanically, the suspension has been updated and now features Bilstein shock absorbers. The engine and transmission also see updates, but Subaru wouldn't give specifics at this time. Expect all the details to be revealed on June 8, the date Subaru has been teasing on Twitter. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Now with this new teaser image and confirmation of a Type RA, one might think that the previous teaser of a winged blue Subaru was of this special WRX STI. However, we're not so sure. We've been studying the trunk lid of the car in the Twitter teaser alongside those of production BRZs and WRXs. If you look closely, there's a long arching crease in the trunk lid of the teaser car and a production BRZ, but it doesn't appear on the WRX. The WRX has a very flat trunk lid. As such, we believe the teaser image is still of a BRZ STI, and we suspect Subaru may reveal both it and the WRX STI Type RA on June 8. Related Video: Image Credit: Subaru Subaru Coupe Performance Sedan subaru brz sti