Well, i got a suprise the other day when my old man rocked up in his new toy. Build number 105 (even has shiny little plaque in console) limited edition 2002 model Club Spec Evo 5 WRX. It's bright yellow pastel, and has been lowered considerably with big 18's. Yeah, my old man is over 50. This replaces his 200sx :D
So what did i think?
Ok, i'm a pretty well built guy and the first thing i discovered was the seats. They would be awesome in a race, but these things are designed to hug the sides of the average Japanese guy which is factually smaller than the average aussie. Mind you, after a while i didn't notice it biting at my sides too much, couldn't really look forward to a long trip though. It's not as roomy as the XR obviously but it's still not bad considering it's much more compact size.
The car looks great, i'm not a fan of the bug eye head lights in that model but the yellow hides it. It has a nice sporty interior and even has a pillar mounted boost gauge like "fully sic" cars get upgraded with
. Not to mention the security number pad under the handbrake, which needs disarming before the car will fire up. It has a nice premium stereo much like Ford's, but i found it didn't quite have the depth i like.
Performance wise was very good. This things meant to do 0-100 in a touch over 6 seconds. Being spoilt by my V8's torque it took a while getting used to the turbo lag, but the motor is very strong and really hauls once in boost. Suprisingly, the boost guage bounced off 15psi which is quite high standard. His 200sx from memory ran at about 7psi. It's a
very smooth motor (so much so that if you were deaf you wouldn't know it was revving almost) and the power band goes hard into the redline which makes it tricky knowing when to shift unless you watch the tacho. If you don't, expect a harsh rev limiter much before you're thinking it's ready to change. The handling is limited only by the cheapish tyres the car yard put on. It would really drive on rails with some good rubber, especially with it's addition of Super Lows.
All in all a very nice package, 12 months ago i wouldn't have craved one now, but now i'm used to the ease of V8 driving it'll be hard to go back to 4 pot driving.
that Subaru put Evo names and badges/stickers on some of their cars. The only and true Evo's are made by Mitsubishi.
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