Clarkson Review Of Us, And The New Sti

[nkwrx]

... and it's no very nice. Basically he thinks we as a group are a bunch of jar-heads and the new car is a bit wet!. The article is in this weeks Sunday times, still quite funny tho I got stuck at a few big wurdz

Subaru Impreza WRX STi

Tailor-made for the hard of thinking

Subaru Impreza WRX

Image :1 of 2

Jeremy Clarkson

There are many ways to tell if someone is a bit thick. You can sit them in a room and ask them to push various bits of plastic into a wooden box. Or you can ask them to describe a cloud. Or you can carefully measure the distance between their eyes, the height of their forehead or the length of their arms.

But there’s another, easier way of establishing whether someone is two spanners short of a tool box. Just ask them this simple question: “Are you wearing a Subaru rally jacket?” Because if they are, you will need to speak more slowly.

I’ll let you into a little secret. Each week, when Top Gear is on air, we prepare two scripts. One is a polysyllabic orgy of complex thoughts on the meaning of human happiness. And the other is full of words such as “tits” and “a***”. Choosing which one eventually gets used depends on how many audience members turn up in Subaru Imprezas.

No, really. If the audience is largely in tweed and Viyella, you can make them laugh with oblique references to Dickens and the iniquities of colonialism in 19th century Calcutta. If it’s a forest of Subaru baseball caps out there, we stick to genitals and spend the day skidding around the studio on banana skins.

Background

* Subaru Forester

* Subaru Impreza review

* Subaru Legacy review

* Subaru Impreza

Multimedia

* Pictures: Subaru Impreza WRX STi

Of course, there are intelligent Subaru drivers, but for the majority of them, there are only eight letters in the alphabet. WRX STIR and B.

I think the problem may be this. A Subaru Impreza is seen by the rallying fraternity as the golden-wheeled wonder boy. It was a Subaru that took Richard Burns to his world championship, and a Subaru with which Colin McRae became synonymous. Subarus are to rallying, then, what Ferrari is to Formula One.

And rallying, I’m afraid, is a sport for the terminally gormless. You stand there, on a frozen Welsh hillside, not knowing whether to drink the soup you’ve made or pour it into your wellingtons. And the evening is enlivened only when a pair of extremely noisy headlights whizz by, hurling a million bits of gravel into your face. The only good news about this is that your face is so chuffing cold you can’t feel the blood tricking out of all the open wounds.

What’s more, you do not know what sort of car the headlights were attached to. You do not know who was driving. And you do not know whether they were travelling faster than the previous set of headlights that spewed stones into your iced-up cheeks.

Rallying is the only sport on God’s earth where you watch the event live but do not know who’s won until long after you’ve got home and had a bath to remove all the mud that became stuck to you when you fell over in a Welsh wood at three in the morning.

The only possible reason for being there is to see someone called Stig Stigsson crash. Except you won’t, of course, because the rally is thousands of miles long and the chances of there being a prang right where you’re standing is remote. And even if you are lucky, you won’t actually see the impact because you’ll have been blinded by grit thrown into your eyes by Stig Magnesstig’s Citroën.

Of course, there is another way of going rallying, and that’s to take part. This is very simple. You buy a car that costs thousands of pounds. You then have that car tweaked and prepared, which costs even more. And then you drive it at incredibly high speed into a tree.

Show me someone who has a Subaru then and I’ll show you someone who thinks rallying is fun. And that means we’re almost certainly talking about a person who breathes through his mouth and has short legs, no forehead and one, possibly lacerated, eye.

Strangely, however, Subaru Imprezas have always been rather intelligent cars. They were so much more quiet and refined than alternatives from Ford and Mitsubishi. You got the impression that an Impreza would know how to hold a knife and fork. And whether to have its cheese before its pudding.

Whereas an Evo, you suspected, would goose your wife, eat with its mouth open and vomit into the sugar bowl during the coffee and mints. A Ford Escort Cosworth, meanwhile, would stab you just to get an electric ankle bracelet and an Asbo.

And now into the mix comes the new Subaru Impreza. I drove the WRX model recently and was terribly underwhelmed. It was too ugly, too soft, equipped like an Eskimo’s khazi and about as exciting as Tuesday. The car you see in the picture this morning, however, is what we’ve really all been waiting for. The STi version. The one with the flared wheelarches, four exhausts and almost 300 horsepowers.

First things first. The looks. And I’m sorry but I’m still not sold. The standard car looks like a lightly melted Rover 25. With its flared aches, this looks like a lightly melted Rover 25 with bingo wings.

Then there’s the interior. As is customary, the STi badge on the dash is pink and I’m afraid it really doesn’t go with the orange dials or the green indicator lights. It’s like a four-year-old has been let loose in there with a box of felt-tip pens.

Still, the vibrant colouring does at least take your mind off the fact that this is a £25,000 car that comes with fewer toys than an Ethiopian birthday boy. You know if a car maker is in trouble when, in its own brochure, it says the car is fitted as standard with locking wheel nuts and pneumatic bonnet struts. This is code for saying, “Sat nav’s extra.”

But of course the most important question is how the STi drives. And the answer is: provided you are the sort of person who can set the timer on a 1989 video recorder . . . it depends.

You see, down by your left elbow there’s a small panel featuring a number of buttons and acronyms that you won’t find in any other car. First of all, you choose what sort of throttle response you’d like. Then you choose from six settings how much power you’d like to go to the front wheels and how much to the back.

Or you can go for the auto setting, which unlocks the centre differential, sending most of the torque to the rear, or the Auto +, which sends it to the front. And now we get to the three-way vehicle dynamics control system, which turns the traction control system on, off or very off.

I have no doubt that on a track, when nothing is coming the other way and you can go beyond the limits, you will be able to spend many happy hours fiddling about, choosing exactly how you’d like to hit a tree. But you know what? On the road, even if you drive quite quickly, you can do whatever you like with any of these settings and it makes not a blind bit of difference.

I suspect the control panel is primarily designed as a talking point at Subaru owners’ club meetings. In the same way that the button that turns the traction control off in your car is something you mention to colleagues when giving them a lift. But you’d never actually use it.

Honestly? The only time I ever deactivate a car’s traction control is when I’m driving past a camera on Top Gear. On the road? Never. And so it goes with the STi. I pushed and prodded all the various buttons and, having realised they weren’t making much difference, put everything in auto and left them alone.

In this mode, the STi is demonstrably better than the WRX. Harder, more taut and noticeably faster. There’s still understeer, in any setting, which was always a tiresome characteristic of the old car. But there is something new. The flat-four strum is gone. The new 2.5 litre engine just sounds boring and I must therefore recommend you opt for the Prodrive sports exhaust to liven it up a bit.

So even though Subarus are probably the most reliable cars made – they make Hondas look like South American dictatorships – the new STi doesn’t look or sound good, it isn’t equipped very well and it doesn’t excite like its bingo wings and four tailpipes suggest it will. Put simply, I did not enjoy driving it.

I think therefore you may have to be a bit dim to buy one. If you’re a Subaru fan with a full range of Subaru clothing in your wardrobe, you’ll probably love it.

Vital statistics

Model Subaru Impreza WRX STi

Engine 2457cc, four cylinders

Power 296bhp @ 6,000rpm

Torque 300 lb ft @ 4,000rpm

Transmission Six-speed manual

Fuel 27.4mpg (combined cycle)

CO2 243g/km

Acceleration 0-60mph: 5.2sec

Top speed 155mph

Rating

Price £24,995

Verdict Strictly for fans

[thewelsho]

Cheeky a55wipe. He doesn't have too much of a clue about Subaru owners. The stereo type that he described is by far in the minority. I can't disgree with his assessment of the car however, well at least on its looks. And I also agree with assessment of Rallying! Ha!

I was reading one of his books and enjoying it too. I think I'll tear it up into little bits and send it to him.

Edited January 21, 2008 by TheWelsho

[corsa]

He must be speaking about the owners of classics.

[thewelsho]

He must be speaking about the owners of classics.

HAHAHAHA!!!! Oh man, I wish I had thought of that! Nice one!

[Jamis]

Na he's defo speaking about the newage owners

[wilky]

All this from a man who refers to the "torques", would happily hammer a bolt in, got taken to court for thrashing an Aston Martin DB5 within an inch of its life and frequently breaks the UK and european speed limits.

He hangs around with a miget who nearly killed himself in a jetcar, a man in a white racing suit who doesnt talk and someone with the personality rating of a tadpole.

Doent stop me watching the program though, I love to hate him, lol.

[scoobymadburd]

[st3ph3n]

He writes a damn good book too.

I think I know the problem with the new Impreza - it was designed by a committee. One half said "We must have a car that is a good family hatch back as that's what's selling". The second said "Let's make it faster than the last one".

So we've kind of ended up with both, except it doesn't appear that people really want to buy it.

[ScoobySounds]

oh come on, it was funny.

[marky.t.s]

thats one of the funniest Clarkson columns ive read in ages.......cos its true,i too have short legs,a lacerated eye and a wardrobe full of Subaru clothing ,and yes the buttons on the new Sti would prove to be a good talking point at a meet soon.......mind you it would mean having to talk to some tw4t in an even newer age car ,eh Welsho? Corsa??

[ANDYJDMSTI]

I think he has it spot on!!

I can say that now seeing i have a nazi staff car!!

[thewelsho]

mind you it would mean having to talk to some tw4t in an even newer age car ,eh Welsho? Corsa??

[colzo]

Sorry folks I don`t find this guy particularly funny, nor would I buy/not buy a car on the basis of one of his (or for that matter any of the other 2 Top Gear presenters) reviews.

[Alan-G]

Sorry, but I just don't get this at all.

Firstly, Jeremy is a bit of a woosy name to start with - although he can be lightly entertaining at times. But when his report above is so entirely fickle to the point of having a Jibe at Subaru to up his own ratings and ego for his own benefit - then what has he to say about this report :

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aDy0QRNaNEs

[G.T.]

I think he has it spot on!!

I can say that now seeing i have a nazi staff car!!

what you got andy ?

new car is gash though

i agree with wilky aswell

[thefastone]

Well there's something...

Yesterday I was out for Lunch with a friend of mine, we'd gone into HMV on the way to get some thing to eat, and whilst we were waiting for our dinner to arrive, we were talking about what we bought. My friend pulled out a Top gear boxset...

Now let me explain to you what my friend is like, he is the kind of guy that knows that it has 4 wheels and an engine, you sit INSIDE it, therefore its probably a car, don't get me wrong, he is by no means unintelligent, he just really isn't interested in cars, I turn up to pick him up in my car, and yeah its a car I could turn up in a supercar, and yeah it would just be an uncomfortable car... He was just telling me about the cars that they have just booked for their wedding, some vintage cars (no point in asking what they are), but also a jag to take him to the church, I asked which one, his reply was, I don't know, I just sit in the thing!

This in mind, I said to him, what did you buy that for? you don't like cars... his reply? "Because I think they are funny"

So here we establish, that we are probably watch for much the same reasons, because the guys are clowns.

Us being petrol heads, were watching for the same reasons not because were itching for the most up to date and objective review of the latest cars, because we probably couldn't afford most of the cars that they have on the show anyway, to be fair the cars are pretty much happen to be there, we like them becasue they describe everything in the same way, and its the way that they describe things that amuse us...

And as for Clarkson, I think that he is perhaps less a journalist, and more of a celebrity that happens to write what's on his mind, He has a great way with words and I think that his opinons are very much the opinions of mostly all of us, lack of political correctness and all... but then I think that thats one of the main reasons that he appeals to most, political correctness is for most something thats forced, everyone likes a rebel.

Just because he writes about cars, does not mean to say that your going to take anything that he says about them seriously, your only reading for the car-related humour...

[thefastone]

Oh, and classics RULE!

[martin_allen]

I don't think he's too far off. I would expect that most of the baseball cap types are the people that go along to top gear. always seems to be plenty of lads in the audience. I think he makes a good point of this not being the right image for Subaru owners though, i like the "knows how to use a knife and fork" thing.

He's likely to be right on the new electronic sillyness too. One of the key things for me about the Impreza in the past has been that it has handled so well it hasn't needed all the electronics of the skyline and the Evo making it a more involving drive and one you know you are doing yourself.

Unless the STi really really needs it (which it probably doesn't) i think this is more of a "we need this cos everyone else has it" move by Subaru and i'd have been happy for them to spend the money elsewhere on the car.

5t.

[thefastone]

Even the classics had the dccd...

Its by no means a new thing.... it was just thats the uk cars never had it till the later new ages...

[thefastone]

Oh and I forgot to say that he slags every one off the same, the rich the poor the foreign, chav, boring... i would be too offended...

[plsteve]

Oh and I forgot to say that he slags every one off the same, the rich the poor the foreign, chav, boring... i would be too offended...

Yup exactly. If that was a review of the Evo X we would all be rolling about laughing at it. Take it in the humour it was meant in, none of it is personal. We all know his style of writing, it's just our turn to take a slagging.

Unfortunately a lot of Scooby owners are tarnished by the boy racer brush due to the classics being affordable for the average ned racer. However, most people on here raise the intellect and image of Scooby owners a hell of a lot

As a piece of journalism, its another great peice of writing - I do read all his books and columns regularly. And we all already knew it would have to be a real enthusiast who buys the new style

Steve.

[z1000]

And that means we’re almost certainly talking about a person who breathes through his mouth and has short legs, no forehead and one, possibly lacerated, eye.

Think he must of been to a club meeting

[the squiggle]

I still like the new STI and i still like Jezza

[pec0]

The guy is genius, and it's all in good fun! Mind you I saw a purple scoob the other day with more wings than a tornado jet fighter, maybe he has a point.........

[dram300]

How can a man who prints his bank account details in his weekly column accuse anyone else of being stupid? Why don't we get his address from the paper and come back from Banbury via his house ???