The Garage: Your daily dose of automotive news, reviews and motorsports coverage
They call him Crazy Leo and he’s a fiend in a Subaru on loose surfaces. Crazy Leo drives rally cars. This weekend though, Crazy Leo traded in his gravel tires for slicks for his first ever road race in the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship at the legendary Mosport International Raceway.
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This is not so much of a long term test, as it is a long timer test. The lovely red Evo in the pics is a 2010 model that has been on the press fleet for a long, long time. Most press cars come off the manufacturers fleet after 10 or 12,000 km, but this poor beast has well over 25,000 on the clock. Hand the keys to a hot rod to some auto journos and they become teenage hooligans again, so those 25,000 km are probably more like 100,000 km in the hands of a loving owner.
This car has had its wheels refinished recently and yet all 4 BBS rims look like they were sourced from a scrap yard. The car has been repainted and looks like someone decided to detail it with steel wool. Overall, Journos Behaving Badly have beaten the living daylights out of this 4 door rocketship. In other words, this is the perfect vehicle to see how the Mitsubishi’s flagship stands up to the real world.
The first time I drove an Evo X (it might have even been the same car) was shortly after it was released and I was still working as a Subaru dealership Service Manager. This may surprise some of you, but I thought that the WRX Sti was just ok. Yes, it was fast, it just felt a bit too mature for the juvenile that still lurks within my soul. Getting behind the wheel of the first version of Mitsubishi’s weapon to be sold in Canada was a revelation. This was how the STi should feel. The car felt rough and raw, like a race car that isn’t happy until the driver starts to pile on the throttle. It darted around on the road on acceleration and even worse under braking, because the suspension was set up for a quicker turn in, just like a race car. Here was a car that appealed to the hoon in me.
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Pat Richard on maximum attack!
On stage A7 at Tall Pines a couple of months ago, I met an interesting camera crew. They were working on a multi camera experiment with Pat Richard’s Subaru. The plan was to mount 4 separate cameras and then allow viewers to choose which one they want to watch. Cool stuff.
Even cooler, they have now shared a video from stage A4.
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Contingency programs are always welcomed by motorsport competitors, even more so when the package is a real winner. Subaru may not be supporting the WRC these days, but they are certainly bringing the goods to North American rally competitors.
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They are calling it the The Fastest WRX STI Ever. Subaru brought 4 time World Rally champion Tommi Makinen to the Nurburgring in a effort to show how much they’ve improved the breed in the past 10 years.
Political correctness aside, you just know they were gunning for a production car record.
While they’ve fallen 33 seconds short of the current Viper record and 29 seconds short of Corvette and GT-R, the 7:55 time that Makinen set is actually in line with a Caterham R500 Superlight and a Ferrari F430. That is some pretty darned impressive company, especially when you consider the difference between something race bred like the Caterham and a 4 door sedan.
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It’s been well documented here at The Garage that hardcore fans of the Subaru Impreza WRX were not exactly thrilled at the all new 2008 Impreza, and the concessions Subaru made to make their hero car appeal to a wider audience. While Subaru made substantial improvements to the 2009 car to win back fans, there was some unfinished business that Subaru is now addressing.
At the New York Auto Show, Subaru took the wraps off the four door Impreza WRX STI, which will sell alongside the five door model. The previous generation STI was sold as a four door only, but when the current car went on sale in 2008, the WRX STI was only available as a five door. The STI’s signature giant rear wing is back, and one can hear the purists rejoicing. The 2011 STI also features a heavily revised suspension, with some of the changes previewed on this year’s STI Special Edition. The new car also features lighter 18″ wheels. The WRX STI drivetrain remains unchanged, which means a boxer 2.5L turbo intercooled four rated at 305hp, coupled to a six-speed manual. The 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STI four door hits the showroom floor this summer.
Yesterday marked the running of the 2010 edition of the Shannonville Stages Rally at Shannonville Motorsport Park, just east on Belleville, Ontario. This is a completely flat road course that is tight and twisty with a long straight at the north end which doubles as a drag strip. I have to say that it is one of my least favorite tracks!
This round of the Ontario Performance Rally Cup proved to be uneventful other than the fact that many teams underestimated the demands of a race track on regular rally brakes. It may seem hard to believe, but many rally cars run stock brakes as the braking effort on gravel and snow isn’t all that taxing. The funny thing is that when we ran the same event in 1994, many of the larger cars had the same issue then. 16 years later and guys still haven’t learned!
2005 Canadian Rally Champion, Peter Thomson with Frank Sprongl co-driving, won the event overall in a Mitsubishi Evo VIII. Second place went to Glen Clarke and Ray Felice in their Porsche 911 which ran out of brakes with 5 laps left. There was actually a battle for 3rd place, which was won by Nicola & Massimo Narini in their Subaru.
Regular readers will recognize the 4th place finisher. Chris Martin and Phil Narini and their Subaru have appeared in our pages a number of times.
After the break, we’ve got some exclusive shots of the event courtesy of Dean Campbell and Flatovercrest.com
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A bunch of sporting organizations could learn a lot about how to promote their brand with social media by watching the efforts of Rally America. Not only do they update their Twitter feed constantly before, during and after each event but they also shoot, edit and publish videos constantly during each rally. They do a great job keeping the fans up to date using modern technology.
As I write this, Travis Pastrana is still at the front of the pack, followed by Block, L’Estage and Bacon. The video after the break is in car with Travis Pastrana during yesterday’s shake down run. It gives an idea how quick Travis is in the Subaru.
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When the then-new Impreza WRX debuted in 2008, Subie fans had a tough time accepting a slightly softer version of a car so many felt so passionate about. Quick to react, Subaru got the WRX back on track with a host of improvements for the 2009 model year.  2010 looks to be a quiet year for the WRX, with the only notable change being the addition of a Limited model.
Mechanically identical to the base and Premium WRX, the Limited adds HID headlights, Sirius satellite radio and leather seats. Pricing for the WRX Limited 4-door will be $28,495USD, and $28,995 for the 5-door. While some WRX diehards may consider these superfluous items, buyers want, and are willing to pay for them. I doubt it is accidental that a WRX Limited costs about the same as a similarly optioned VW GTI.
Subaru and…The Pogues?
Cars and music are two of my greatest passions in life. In fact, they easily go hand in hand. What can make a blast up your favorite country road even better? Easy, by picking the music that enhances the experience for you. As soon as radios were installed in cars, music and the automobile became permanently entwined. While there are those of us who happily trundle down the road in silence, or accompanied by the dulcet tone of news radio, I personally cannot drive unless I have music on.
Which partly explains a dilemma I have-when advertising fuses music to cars. Granted, this has been going on for ages, but when it’s a band that exists outside the mainstream, whose fans are more of a cult following than casual listeners, acceptance that the artist sold the song is heartbreaking. Again, it’s not new. In 2000, The Smiths sold “How Soon Is Now?” to Nissan in a global advertising campaign for the Maxima. Earlier this year, Sia covered The Church’s “Under the Milky Way” for the Lincoln MKT. But perhaps the most shocking use of a song in a car commercial is Subaru, who used The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” to advertise the Forester. Why? Read on! [Read more...]