Subaru Impreza STI - 6,834 miles

The Scooby's binge drinking had to come to end...

By Oli S / Tuesday, 11 November 2008 / Loading comments

Dirty - the way a 'Preza should be

It had to happen in the end. The months of credit crunching, spiralling living costs, collapsing financial institutions and general talk of economic apocalypse finally got to me. The slightly cheap looking digital read-out in the Subaru never really budged from around 22mpg and the petrol station attendants were starting to get to know me on a first name basis.

Partially out of curiosity, and mostly to see if I could save any cash, I thought I’d reset the computer and spend a week without my foot welded to the floor of the Subaru. The first bit was easy – I had a jaunt to Luton that would be mostly motorways. Using cruise control I kept at a steady speed, in sixth, and by the time I got home the readout was showing a whopping 31.2mpg.

The best bit was that the fuel gauge appeared to have stopped moving in front of my very eyes every time I drove down the street. Town driving was obviously trickier so I experimented with keeping the revs as low as possible, while driving as smoothly as I could.

A feature in many a rear view mirror

The Impreza didn’t seem to like this very much, grumbling constantly at me, angry that the shift light no longer flashed constantly. After a couple of days of commuting the car was registering around 27mpg, which isn’t bad, but then I realised something. I was bored out of my mind.

To be honest, there’s not really much fun to be had inside the rather cheap belly of an Impreza, and in a couple of days I had rendered this £27,000 car completely pointless. Its only saving grace is its ruthless point-to-point speed, punchy engine, and effortless road-holding.

Take these out of the equation and you are left with not very much at all. With this thought in mind I turned off Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4 and wound the 2.5-litre flat-four up to the point where it starts to sound like an industrial washing machine going into spin cycle. Then I pulled in to the nearest petrol station.

Which Transit did these come from?

Meanwhile I got another try of a very different kind of hatch this month – the new VW Scirocco. I drove both the 1.4-litre and 2.0-litre in Portugal for the launch and was impressed. It was time to test it on UK roads, and since at £21,000 it is considerably cheaper than the Subaru but almost 100bhp down, I thought it would make an interesting comparison.

The first thing to say about the ‘Rocco is that it looks incredible. Yes it’s a bit odd, and in the original press shots a bit too Golf-like, but in the flesh it looks like someone has swiped a concept car out the back door of the Geneva Motor Show. I can’t remember many cars that get so many looks.

This is one of those cars where people walk up to you at petrol stations, or in the street, with confused expressions and a head full of questions. Kids shout out ‘nice car’, or something to that effect, and young and old, male and female, seem to really like it. It’s very well made too, and makes the Scooby seem a bit immature, and as a way of getting around it really is a very nice place to be. Having said that, on a twisty road it wouldn't know which way the STI had gone.

VW Scirocco - surprisingly good-looking

The turbocharged 2.0-litre four gives it a decent lick and although it shares its underpinnings with the Golf GTI it handles flatter with more composure (no doubt thanks to the excellent adaptive dampers). What’s not to like? Well not much really, perhaps it could do with better visibility front and rear, but then that’s coupes for you. All in all a decent car – I expect them to sell like roc cakes…(sorry)