RE: Shed of the Week: Subaru Impreza Turbo Estate

[aaron_2000]

Ex X Power said:

Completely agree, Learn to drive something crap quickly and it'll transpose onto the good stuff... My first car was VW Polo with 45bhp and 155/70 tyres....I drove it like an idiot (Not big or clever but most lads have been there) the limits were so low you could get a grasp for car control.
Being older and wiser get on the track, find the limit...ideally on crap tyres at first and build yourself up.... You'll then be able to appreciate a quick car more and not kill yourself or anyone else

Part of me says I'd've been better sticking with my 1.6 Focus, but blackbox says either way I can't drive it quick, probably for the best at my age anyway so I just got an ST170, not overly fast but handles like a 205 in a way. Would like to get a day done at Oulton this summer

[rastapasta]

aaron_2000 said:

Ex X Power said:

Completely agree, Learn to drive something crap quickly and it'll transpose onto the good stuff... My first car was VW Polo with 45bhp and 155/70 tyres....I drove it like an idiot (Not big or clever but most lads have been there) the limits were so low you could get a grasp for car control.
Being older and wiser get on the track, find the limit...ideally on crap tyres at first and build yourself up.... You'll then be able to appreciate a quick car more and not kill yourself or anyone else

Part of me says I'd've been better sticking with my 1.6 Focus, but blackbox says either way I can't drive it quick, probably for the best at my age anyway so I just got an ST170, not overly fast but handles like a 205 in a way. Would like to get a day done at Oulton this summer

There are days when I look at people your age and think that it sucks arse to get old and there are other days when it doesn't, and today is option B. Im afraid, with regard to the insurance issue, the other posters are completely correct. However under EU law at least one insurer has to quote you, be it eye meltingly expensive or not.

I was lucky at your age, we lived in the sticks so we needed to drive to get around and the old man was a manager in an insurance company so insurance was never an issue as he had us as named drivers on the parents cars. But even at that one of the things we did as kids was to drive around the fields to get a hang of the control. Even at that, my first car, a 206 1.4 felt like a weapon and I nearly stacked it on more than one occasion. I recall the issues my mates had trying to insure themselves on 1.0 corsa's and being quoted GBP2,000 for a car worth less than half that. It was only when I worked in the insurance industry (specifically motor liability claims) later on that the reasoning for this hit home... Statistically, (in the late 90's - early 2000) a person aged 18-25 was 3x more likely to crash than a person over 25 and looking at your situation I guess people don't change. While you yourself might be a sensible driver, you are tarred by the same brush due to the sins of others and, over and above this, we are all given to moments of idiocy at one stage or another and (echoing the points above) its experience that gets us out of such moments.

The track day advice is a good one, but i would go one better and suggest a rally school day. I think you'll scratch the itch that the Subaru has given you in the short term, you'll probably get more out of it if the school offers different cars and different surfaces, and you'll end up a better driver.

Best of luck.

[aaron_2000]

rastapasta said:

There are days when I look at people your age and think that it sucks arse to get old and there are other days when it doesn't, and today is option B. Im afraid, with regard to the insurance issue, the other posters are completely correct. However under EU law at least one insurer has to quote you, be it eye meltingly expensive or not.

I was lucky at your age, we lived in the sticks so we needed to drive to get around and the old man was a manager in an insurance company so insurance was never an issue as he had us as named drivers on the parents cars. But even at that one of the things we did as kids was to drive around the fields to get a hang of the control. Even at that, my first car, a 206 1.4 felt like a weapon and I nearly stacked it on more than one occasion. I recall the issues my mates had trying to insure themselves on 1.0 corsa's and being quoted GBP2,000 for a car worth less than half that. It was only when I worked in the insurance industry (specifically motor liability claims) later on that the reasoning for this hit home... Statistically, (in the late 90's - early 2000) a person aged 18-25 was 3x more likely to crash than a person over 25 and looking at your situation I guess people don't change. While you yourself might be a sensible driver, you are tarred by the same brush due to the sins of others and, over and above this, we are all given to moments of idiocy at one stage or another and (echoing the points above) its experience that gets us out of such moments.

The track day advice is a good one, but i would go one better and suggest a rally school day. I think you'll scratch the itch that the Subaru has given you in the short term, you'll probably get more out of it if the school offers different cars and different surfaces, and you'll end up a better driver.

Best of luck.

Cheers, good advice. I'm interested in anyway of becoming a safer, faster and better overall driver. After reading Roadcraft I'd quite like to go do the roadcraft driving course at some point.

[rogerhudson]

Looks good, I see you didn't use the word 'wagon' at all. Wagons are great.