AutoExpress reviews the Subaru Impreza WRX Spec C and they’re quite amazed at the car’s handling and performance.

“The car sits on Subaru’s new SI-Drive ‘intelligent’ chassis with the latest mechanical limited-slip differential at the rear. There’s also a revised suspension set-up with new dampers and springs, as well as a thicker rear anti-roll bar.

All this combines with the 18-inch alloys and those sticky tyres to solve the vagueness of the STi’s steering, and turn-in is much more precise as a result.”

“The Spec C is 30kg lighter than the STi, tipping the scales at 1,475kg, so you’d expect it to be fast. But it’s the throttle response that stands out. A new ball-bearing turbo and intercooler waterspray device work together to transform the car’s power delivery.

The latter showers the intercooler constantly to reduce intake temperatures from 70 degrees Celsius to around 40 degrees Celsius. The result is that the engine retains the 25bhp that’s normally lost when it starts to suffer in the heat.”

Here’s a preview of the automatic transmission Subaru WRX STI in Japan. Not sure I like it myself – it’s making the car more and more mainstream.

Two Gran Turismo 5 video footages have been released, highlighting the Subaru WRX STI in this realistic racing game scheduled to come out just after Christmas on PS3.

The game looks amazing and very photorealistic. When looking at the footage however, I found myself wondering where the sense of speed was, which is often the case in realistic racing video games.

The damage modeling looks amazing!

Motor Trend has a first drive review of the 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX STI Spec C up on their site. Sadly, although priced at only $38K, the STI Spec C is only available in Japan. It comes with a bunch of upgrades from the standard STI making handling and endurance better.

“[...] the Spec C is the best-handling Impreza STI the company has ever made.”

“Subaru might have pulled out of the World Rally Championships due to poor showroom sales, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost its rallying spirit. The very fact that it built the limited-edition Spec C, which stands for Competition, is proof of that. STI took the stock Impreza STI and tweaked the bejeezus out of it to create a car that was race-ready for Group N rallying in Europe.”

“A newly fitted ball-bearing design reduces friction inside the turbocharger to improve throttle response, and a clever intercooler water-spray device allows the car to be driven harder for longer at maximum power.”

“The Spec C has a rear mechanical limited-slip differential, replacing the Torsen variety, uniquely fitted STI dampers and springs, a thicker rear stabilizer, and grippier Potenza RE070 tires”.

Pretty amazing tuning!

Ken Block wrecks his frontend of the car while jumping at the X-Games.

Car and Driver has a long term road test of the 2008 Subaru WRX STI. It looks like they got a bunch of mechanical issues with the car. The review is pretty extensive and is worth a read.

“The first few months with the STI were smooth sailing. [...] Around the 11,000-mile mark, second gear began repeatedly popping out of its engagement, and into service the STI went.”

“Engine problems cropped up with just 23,000 miles on the clock. [...] An air-fuel-ratio sensor was initially suspected and subsequently replaced, but the new sensor proved no fix. Finally, after months of trying to track down the unhappy ghost in our engine bay, a new engine control unit was installed, curing the problem. [...] It took so long to identify the issue that Subaru asked the dealer to do a compression check on all cylinders, to make sure driving the car with the surging issue hadn’t caused it to go out of spec. As it turned out, the compression was indeed out of whack, so a new short block (which really means most of the engine beyond the cylinder heads) was installed at 32,066 miles.”

“[...] when the car was functioning properly, it was an extremely capable and fun-to-drive machine.”

“The all-wheel-drive system proved fantastic during the winter months and the suspension provides a much more civilized ride than that of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.”

Ken Block doing drifts in his 530whp Subaru WRX STI. Pretty awesome.