A good friend of mine is a Trauma Consultant at Elgin Hospital, she responds to stuff so has had a few blue light Subarus. As a petrol head she treated herself to a brand new WRX STI after a sucsession of WRXs. As I ran her across to Aberdeen we spent the rest of the day playing in it and I drove it about 30 miles, on a top 10 driving road :biggrin: with only about 100 miles on the clock. The bloke said they are pre run in, but we didn't kick the arse out of it, however we sympathetically started to wake the beast :)

 

It was a very good car, the most obvious quirk of the car is it's very heavy, quick and feelsome steering. I have never driven a performance 4WD and was pleasantly suprised to find new sensations coming to me through the wheel. The car has a number of Evo-esque yaw and torque vectoring systems, there were a few times when rolling off the throttle passing apexes I actually felt the wheel turn itself in, rather than the more familiar self centering castoring I feel with RWD.

 

It was very stiff, not frantic, or uncomfortable, to explain best i will compare it to my MX5 which gives a good stark contrast. With the Mazda. dropping a back wheel into a drain, is like kicking a shoebox, with the lid removed to watch the walls wobble about, the Subaru has the four corners so well connected that the bump is felt and forgotten with none of the San Fransisco sized aftershocks of the Mazda.

 

The brakes were powerful with the pedal sinking a perfect inch allowing my right heel to kick the gears away on the beautifully placed gas pedal for sharp and responsive boxer 'braps' in place of the V6 'bvums' or MX5 'blips'. With this the clutch was quite stiff, but totally consistent and smooth with a forgiving bite and the 6 speed manual is very short and positive, 3rd, 4th and 5th solve most problems, perhaps second would have been an option below 40mph on the tighter stuff, but that wouldn't have been too sympathetic on the new car.

 

The engine gave all the power you ever need, I never gave a second thought to traction, unlike in my Zed, in which for a country lane overtake, I just about file a flight plan before stepping on the Jesus pedal! It was smooth if a bit quiet, plenty of uneventful but useful torque with an unusual power delivery higher up. Perhaps a product of the slightly smaller displacement, but it seemed almost a bit artificial, the way the boost came on strongly but at the same time very smoothly with a small lag of about 3/4 sec after a plunge of the pedal. It felt like there was a slight smoothing of this delivery, as if the car's fly by wire throttle was saying "I know you have booted it, are you sure... OK lets play." This wasn't the case in Sport Hashtag mode (S#) which made the throttle a light switch.

 

All in all I was very impressed, lovely build quality (ignore the reviews it's nice), more screens than Doc Brown's Delorian, loads of room in the back, big boot, nice extras. Most importantly, engaging drive, that doesn't unravel when you lean on it, a dump you can still hear when totally stock and heads turning from key in to key out.

 

And I must have been one of the first people in the UK to drive one.

Realy nice

These modern day sports cars are fast and safe Tom and it must of been so nice to drive. But it still looks like a sports saloon car and melts into the background with the other saloons but a 300zx catches the eye and leaves people saying "What was that":biggrin:

These modern day sports cars are fast and safe Tom and it must of been so nice to drive. But it still looks like a sports saloon car and melts into the background with the other saloons but a 300zx catches the eye and leaves people saying "What was that":biggrin:

 

True. But most would swap there zeds for this in a blink of an eye :)

Me and Pam were discussing the spoiler, she said it was the only thing that she had been a bit worried about, incase it was too brash. I shut an eye and held my thumb up to see it without... immediately it was a 335i bmw. We reckon the spoiler looks fine, the car does stand out, but a lot of it is the lovely new and bright blue.

 

Obviously nothing stands out like a zed :biggrin:

 

Edited July 25, 201411 yr by tomfromthenorth

At least the shape has gone back to looking "Subaru-ish". Their last effort looked like a Vauxhall Astra.

 

Peter

True. But most would swap there zeds for this in a blink of an eye :)

 

Nope! Rather have the Z and keep the (lots of) £ change.

That's pretty cool ,had a wrx sti a few years back love the flat 4 all tho I was driving this not so long ago

Is that a Russian something? T 60??? I'm not too up on my tanks. Stag do type thing?

That's pretty cool ,had a wrx sti a few years back love the flat 4 all tho I was driving this not so long ago

[ATTACH=CONFIG]81537[/ATTACH]

 

:lol:

 

Is that a Chieftain?

mate had a 400bhp evo we went out one night its was pissing down the roads were proper wet and he was pedal to metal all the way no once did the car slip or feel unsafe just grip no stop .the z is tail happy I little bit to much that why I have gone with 10ich rear wheel with 285 tyre with sticky rubber and one day race logic traction control

Yeah not normally my thing either Dan, my cousin just sold that nice white Evo 5 for being boring which led to it being a potential license loser. But it was very very good the scooby, being totally in control with an eager car is fun, I prefer the lairy zed behavior, keeps me awake :ninja:

I sold the ultimate licence loser. the Honda fireblade. the good thing with the evo is you can drive it on the limit all the time in any weather and that's a good thing

I think the only car I'd swap my zed for would be a GT-R..

here is my old lotus I had its the very best thing out there when I came to handling even the evo would struggle to keep up with is it changed direction like a house fly I miss it very much and wish I still had it I sold it to a guy in Canada

here is my old lotus I had its the very best thing out there when I came to handling even the evo would struggle to keep up with is it changed direction like a house fly I miss it very much and wish I still had it I sold it to a guy in Canada

 

They handle like they're on rails don't they :)

mate it was fantastic I loved it should never have sold it but I had this Porsche boxster 3.2 at the same time as the lotus I was good car to

What was that like compared to the zed?

True. But most would swap there zeds for this in a blink of an eye :)

 

Nope - I'd keep the Z and spend the money on a more modern sports car as a daily driver.... In fact GTR aside, I'd stick with German metal nowadays, as the Japanese seem to have lost their way as far as decent sports coupes go. Sadly they are more interested in flogging Qashqais, Leafs and Aygos etc., to bother making interesting cars:sad:

 

These modern day sports cars are fast and safe Tom and it must of been so nice to drive. But it still looks like a sports saloon car and melts into the background with the other saloons but a 300zx catches the eye and leaves people saying "What was that":biggrin:

 

Agreed Gaz.....:cool:

well lets say the z is awful in handing vs the Porsche and the lotus

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

after I sold the lotus I got the 944 handled very well indeed

I had this z3 before any of the other cars it was fun very tail happy in the wet but was easy to drift round I spent load of cash on this car

this was other car I enjoyed owning handled ok was a home on the m56 would cruz a 140 was very stable reaaly was infact it was one of the most stable cars a high speed in a straight line

Really liking the 'Lude' Dan, very rare car now!

Was at a classic car show couple of months ago, there was one of these - a black 2.2Vtec with a Japanese owner sitting along side. He owned it for 15 years, absolutely loved it and once I asked him a couple of questions about it he was in his element, real pleased I showed some interest!

the prelude was good car never broke down not once was good to drive I used it every day the vtec was magic