Review of the new Subaru Impreza

Ever since the early nineties we've known what to expect from a hot Subaru Impreza. Saloon body shape, or Sportwagon for the wilfully odd, charismatic horizontally opposed engine, an interior with less charm than a branch of LIDL, four-wheel drive and the occasional garish colour scheme were the staples. The driving experience was never anything less than very good and frequently brilliant, with highlights being special models such as the 22B, the RB5, the P1 and the RB320. Now the script has been changed.

Certain trademarks continue with the latest Impreza WRX. It's still got a flat-four, turbocharged engine that drives all four wheels but it's not what you'd expect of an Impreza to look at. For a start, it's a hatchback. It's also a lot better finished than any Impreza has been to date and could even pass, in a sober colour, as normal family transport. Strange things are indeed afoot at the Circle K.

When Subaru ditched the Impreza's classic 2.0-litre flat four in favour of a bigger 2.5-litre lump, many expected revolt from die-hard Subaru fans but it never came, partly due to the qualities of the bigger engine. That engine is carried over into the latest WRX with a few improvements. Peak torque (236lb/ft) and power (228bhp) are still the same but the delivery is very different. Whereas the old WRX sometimes felt strangely gutless when pulling out of junctions and onto roundabouts, the latest car is transformed thanks to 221lb/ft of torque being available at 2,000rpm where the old car could only manage 150lb/ft at that engine speed.

The sprint to 60mph still comes up in 6.1 seconds but there are some interesting detail changes. The WRX features an anti-roll bar and the SVDC dynamics control package as an extra safety net should the full-time all-wheel-drive transmission system relinquish its hold on the road. Under normal conditions, drive is split 50/50 between the front and rear axles in the manual cars (60/40 in the automatic) but a centre differential with viscous coupling diverts torque to the axle with most grip to reduce wheelspin. The WRX also features a mechanical rather than a viscous limited-slip differential between the rear wheels.

"There's precious little cause for complaint when it comes to the engineering"

In the UK, the Impreza was always either a saloon or a five-door Sportwagon that trod the line between hatchback and estate but now it's only offered as a conventional five-door hatch. The car is 45mm wider than the old Sportwagon and has 95mm extra in the wheelbase. This brings a useful increase in interior space that will go down well with family buyers, as will the more compact rear suspension design which facilitates a 170-litre increase in boot space to 538 litres.

The side skirts and spoilers on the WRX models do sharpen-up that sporty edge and have served to quieten those who threw their toys from their prams when they first caught sight of this generation of Impreza. If it was any sports hatch other than a Subaru Impreza you'd have to say it doesn't look too bad, so maybe we just need a period of acclimatisation. At least the interior is a big step forward. The tough plastics and staid design of the old car have finally been axed in favour of the superior quality materials and modern layout in this model.

The old Impreza range was firmly geared towards the tarmac-shredding performance models with the less powerful versions being little more than odd curios. Subaru has tried to flip that on its head with the latest Impreza, putting greater emphasis on the normally aspirated 1.5 and 2.0-litre cars so it could go head to head with European hatchbacks. In fact, the company wasn't planning to import the WRX at all and its availability may be rather limited, with the even more powerful WRX STI model acting as a 'halo product' at the top of the range. Fortunately, when they saw the opportunity to shift some stock, Subaru backtracked.

The result is that the Impreza 2.5 WRX is available at what looks to be a very competitive UK retail price of around £20,000 which compares very well with rivals like the Mazda3 MPS and the Volkswagen Golf R32. More blue collar rivals such as the Ford Focus ST, the Vauxhall Astra VXR and the Renaultsport Megane still manage to undercut it but none offer the security of all-wheel drive. Equipment includes alloy wheels, climate control, a CD stereo, a height and reach adjustable steering wheel, fog lamps, electric windows, a vehicle information display, xenon headlamps, a six-disc auto changer and more aggressive styling. The airbag count is also good with side front and curtain 'bags as standard.

Cost of ownership was traditionally an area where the old Impreza WRX struggled, the car making sense to committed petrolheads but its ongoing bills were always too steep for the Impreza to cross over into the mainstream. To be honest, it's hard to see that latest car changing that particular issue, a combined fuel consumption figure of 27.2mpg being significantly worse than a 302bhp BMW 335i. Of course, it can be argued that the Impreza WRX's fuel economy is actually very good for a car that can keep a Lamborghini honest along a Welsh moorland road but in town you'll be lucky to get near Subaru's 19.8mpg urban figure.

The WRX produces a hefty 246g/km of CO2, so it won't go on too many company car lists. Residual values look better than initially predicted for the Impreza although insurance looks expensive. One thing that buyers can rely on is that fact that Subaru regularly features amongst the UK's top manufacturers in customer satisfaction surveys with the unyielding reliability of its products usually cited as the major reason why. There's no evidence to suggest that the latest Impreza won't further the manufacturer's reputation in this regard, especially with versions of the engines and transmissions having already seen service in other Subaru products.

Radical change is always an uncomfortable process and in reinventing a performance icon, Subaru may well have to suffer some short term pain in order to reap longer term rewards. The latest Impreza WRX is not a car that at first sits easily on the eye, but then we have said that about previous generation models and have grown to accept them. Even the controversial 'bug-eye' Impreza from 2000 now looks pretty good.

There's precious little cause for complaint when it comes to the engineering. Yes, the Impreza WRX is no longer as raw or as urgent as the old car but it's no slower and the interior no longer feels as if it's about to spontaneously disintegrate should you fail to spot a sneaky speed hump. I was prepared to hate this car but suspect that it could prove a grower. The product is strong and the price is right but are Subaru's customers ready?

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