Why Subaru?

Good question!

coming soon.

Affordable supercar.

What makes Scoobys special.

Why Imprezas are better than Lan EVOs.

Apart from the fact that they've won the WRC manufacturer's title three times more than Mitsubishi and go faster round the Top Gear track, the real reason Imprezas cock a snoot at the EVO is because they are what they say they are. Racing is important to car companies because it gives the model street-cred and makes people want to buy the production cars. When you see a Lancer [or any other car for that matter] bounding over a crest on a rally-stage, the only similarity to the one you buy is the bodyshell. Yes you can buy the EVO, but thats exactly what it is, an over-priced, limited-production Evolution model of a road car and Mitsubishi offer nothing in the mass-market that comes near it.

Scoobys are quite the opposite. The Impreza is a performance car by design and any boring models are engineered backwards, so when you see that STi leaping over the gravel you know that some of that technology is translated down to what you buy. Ok so the only real evolutions of the Impreza that were built to rival the ultra high-spec Lan EVO are the STi models, but drop down one rung, into the realistic price zone and the all-wheel-drive, turbocharged WRX destroys the front-drive 2.0L 'Sport' from Mitsi. Subaru even discontinued their low-spec GL models when they realised nobody in Britain would buy them when they could just as easily afford the rally-bred models. Mitsubishi never countered this. Even the classic WRX has more parts than a 747 and can be taken straight onto a track. In its place Mitisubishi gave us the Charisma - nuff said.

Initial D seems to think they rock too.

You may know the Initial D Manga series, which follows a team of street racers and is massively popular in Japan. Its pretty awesome too, as the Japs love their chariots and they just go into so much techy detail [as opposed to stuff like Fast & Furious that leaves you cold with its baby talk], so its definitely worth checking out. Most of the anime series is available online and listening to them prattle on about tuning in Japanese is brilliant if you don't mind subtitles.

Anyway, the whole thing revolves around Tak, who drives a battered old Toyota Carolla that is specially prepared by his dad and is so good in fact, that he cannot be beaten by anything that comes to the mountain - Skylines, EVOs, Nissan 200s the lot, but there's a distinct lack of Imprezas - nobody seems to have one. Eventually Tak becomes so unconquerable that his dad decides to teach him a lesson and gets hold of a car that can beat him. Cue the Scooby.

Now it looks to me an awful lot like the ultimate 22B, which would make perfect sense, but just to be difficult the hardcore Initial-D geeks claim that it's just a Type R STi coupe with the WRX-style bumper. That means that its not the 'big-block' motor after all and is just the 2L EJ20T lump like the rest of us. A fine endorsement from the world's most pedantic car writers!