Subaru Impreza WRX (2007) – the car world's greatest misses
Instead of hijacking the hot hatch class, this five-door WRX marked the end of the Impreza’s heyday
It’s often overlooked, but the car that built the Impreza legend in the UK, and the one that people actually bought in significant numbers, was not the grey-import early STI models so covetable today, but the Turbo 2000. Effectively a UK version of the Japanese-market WRX but with a little less power, it was this car that sold so prodigiously that no single car journey in the late ’90s was completed without a sighting of at least one Impreza. Probably.
Such proletariat performance took a knock with the advent of the early-noughties ‘GD’ Impreza, where official STI models were now available in the UK and stole at least some of the limelight, but it was truly sunk in 2007 with the advent of the ‘GE’ Impreza, or in plain parlance, ‘the awkward hatchback one’.
Rarely has a car that carried so much weight of expectation received such a public and professional bashing as the humble GE WRX, which certainly looked as though it expected a right kicking from the cut of its snivelling jib. Jethro Bovingdon described it in his evo Driven review as: ‘A frumpy, bland, awkward lump of a car.’ Quite.
This was somewhat appropriate, because there’s a sense that the GE marked the beginning of the end of Subaru UK’s interest in either selling or marketing anything that might appeal to driving enthusiasts, and it didn’t help that Subaru withdrew from the WRC a year later. Fast Subarus would continue in the UK until 2018, but always seemed to be an inconvenience thereafter, in stark contrast to Subaru USA’s attitude.
Back to the GE, though, and the question of whether it was really that bad. After all, switching to a hatchback body (a saloon STI arrived later on these shores) seemed sensible, given the popularity of hot hatches in the UK. This was a period, you might recall, that was awash with talented machinery, from hot Méganes to the Focus ST, Civic Type R and, of course, the VW Golf GTI. We were spoilt for choice, and the idea of a Subaru that played to those rules but offered the famous traction and all-weather ability of four-wheel drive got everyone salivating.
Perhaps that’s why the finished article fell so hard. Powered by the 2.5-litre EJ257 engine, it produced a respectable 227bhp and 236lb ft of torque, but the bigger lump was short on both charisma and response. Worse, its outputs no longer looked favourable amongst that new breed of 2-litre, turbocharged, front-wheel-drive hot hatches; a top speed of 130mph and 0-62mph in 6.5sec were no longer spectacular, and when the aforementioned front-drive crowd started sprouting limited-slip diffs – like the Mégane R26 – there was a belief that the Subaru’s four-wheel-drive system merely added weight and thirst (which were undeniable). Jethro’s review went on to describe a car that, while blessed with fine traction, was dreadfully off the pace in terms of body control, steering feel and resisting roll.
Subaru had at least tried with the new interior, which although an improvement would have scored a C- compared to the Mk5 Golf’s A*. Inconveniently for Subaru, VW decided it was going to try really rather hard indeed with its new GTI and produced an absolute future classic, all for just hundreds more than the £19,995 WRX. The STI hatch (GR) was a much better car, albeit not without struggles of its own, but for the cooking UK Impreza Turbo just three stars in these pages said it all.
This story was first featured in evo issue 320.
