my 172 clio easily kept up with my old wrx classic!

 

Ooops,

EVO mag quote a weight of 1035kg for the std 172, so cup version will be a good bit lighter.

 

89kg lighter according to the sales speil i believe.

 

Is this turning into another 172 vs wrx thread.

 

Nah Wrx is to powerful, that more than makes up for it handling woes lol

 

Having recently removed the suspension from my MY99 I was quite surprised to see how crude it looked, especially compared to the Tein Coilover set up. Subaru UK certainly made it work though, as the old set up never once let me down, just safe understeer if you pushed too hard.

The coilovers are night and day in terms of handling though. The limits are now so high as to make one quite queasy if you really push it.

My ethos is modifying my car was to achieve the kind of gap between the car and GTis that existed 10 years ago. I've certainly more than done that with the power and handling....just the brakes to go....Calling Mr AP

Ns04

 

There isn't a huge amount of point to this thread.

If two cars race on a public road(which alot of people are talking about here), the one behind has the easy job. I could sit behind a quicker car all day long, only because the one in front has to make sure there's nothing coming the other way by 'half' cutting corners etc. The second car can take much better lines after seeing what the one in front does.

The only proper test would be to close of a section of road and time it like a stage.

One of my pals has a Civic Type R. He's been in my car when it's been near the limit, and he couldn't believe the speed it was cornering at.

 

dont get me wrong, the 172 wasnt quick enough for me, but it was quick. the wrx would waste it no doubt, but there ya go. plus when i did have the 172 i didnt feel safe doing 100plus! too small, feel safer in the scoob

 

Why are you doing a 100 plus?

 

wow vw have made a car that can keep up with the classic uk subaru of 13 year or so ago!!

does it keep up with the jap imports of the same age? no

so basically this thread is all about a new 08 car being on par with a car that was waterd down for the uk market of the early 90s the turbo 2000,

how truley amazing!! Not

so does this mean a golf in around 218 will be on par with this!

STI 330S £30,995 OTR
330 PS @ 5400 rpm
470 Nm torque at 3400 rpm
Max speed 155mph, 0-62 4.8 secs
6 Speed Manual Transmission
S-I Drive


if this is the case just think what the suabru will have in 2018

 

I had a little real life experience of this.

a couple of years back i was running a 300/300 classic with an STi 5 Type R gearbox. At rolling speeds a mk5 GTi was tail gating me so i tried to lose him down a long straight. I only pulled a few car lengths on him, and yes i can drive (to a point lol).

In real life conditions to answer the OP`s original question i really dont think there is much in it and they have certainly closed the gap.

IMHO a newage needs 400bhp to bring back the edge that a classic STi had in the late 90`s.

 

Like i said earlier you need big horsepower or a massive power to weight to make a huge difference on acceleration.

I kept with an M3 Conv up to sensible speeds in my 260bhp Classic he never really pulled away yet they have 338bhp, yet an Integra i had some fun with me over a length of a few hundred yards and i must have been a car and a half in front at the most - but then that was only up to the legal limit.

Likewise something like a 106 Gti will snap at the heels of a current crop of GTI's and you'd be amazed at this if you owned a 106 as to how close you got. Its only when speeds get higher (and silly) that you will pull away or like i said big horsepower advantages. (like RS6's and Brabus Mercs 'ahem')

 

I've had a WRX (in 1999) and then an Sti (in 1999-2000) and I currently have a MkV R32.

IMHO there is no contest, despite more power (the Sti) and lighter weight (both WRX and Sti) reality is - like it or not - that technology (suspension, brakes, DSG gearbox, power delivery, etc) has moved on big time in 10 years.

Forget for a minute 0-60 and such, my R32 on a challenging drive (alpine road or the like) would be a match for the Sti I had, and would easily beat the WRX. All the while with more safety and less effort.

10 years is a loooong time in car technology ...

 

You know some say that classic Imprezas are "too safe" or "Too easy to drive"

Talk to anyone on a Lancia forum about a Integrale Vs an Impreza and they'll say the Impreza is boringly safe to drive. I would say theres nearly 10 years between them in initial design.

So, yes, technology improves a cars ability to drive fast - look at rally. You no longer need insane horsepower figures to make up for slow-ish direction change. Same with F1 and most other motorsports.

There is however, the argument that as technology improves the car, the involvement of the driver is lost somewhere.

I'd rather drive my favorite road and be a little bit scared then wrapped in cotton wool

 

Mmmmm ex Grale owner thats me

Yup the scoob is very easy to drive.

 

Also, one does have to bare in mind that beyond a certain age, cars tend to be extensively modified/updated such that, in many important respects, they are no longer burdened with 10 year old technology etc..

Look at the Cosworth Escort....How many standard ones do you see? Very few- they've pretty much all been updated/uprated and some are VERY capable despite the basic design of the car dating back to the Wright Brothers!

Same with the classic scooby, fewer and fewer that remain are std. They have been updated to move with the times.

How many people do you know with Imprezas with adjustable suspension/coilovers on the car. You don't see any modern GTis with that.

How many scoobies do you know running uprated transmissions?

How many scoobies do you know that run uprated brakes.

How many scoobies do you know sitting at around or above the 300bhp mark. You don't get many std hot hatches at that level and when you modify em to produce similar power, the FWD layout becomes a significant compromise. The fact is that RWD and AWD IS a more effective way of deploying higher power. Power is nowt without control, and if you start having to extensively rely on technology (e.g. limiting torque output in the first 2 gears) to stop the power overwhelming the chassis then you have too much power for the current configuration of the car, simple as.

Yes, 10 years is a long time in car manufacture, but no one says that just because the car ages, you can't benefit from improvements in technology!

What is a hot hatch anyway, isn't the new STi essentially a hot hatch?!

Maybe the genre needs re-defining, or perhaps we should just use the generic term, "performance car"

As has been said many times of this thread: never forget, its taken hot hatches 15 years to catch up with the daddy!

The classic Impreza is destined to go the way of the Intergrale and Cossie.

Ns04

 

And the scoobs still the daddy

 

Oooo yeah!!

 

Nicole was fit though .....

....Pappa ???

 

I agree, but the thread isn't about driver involvement, it's about speed

My old Elise 111S for driver involvement was far ahead of anything else, but on a less then perfect alpine road wouldn't see which way my R32 (or old STI for that matter) went.

And anyhow, I find that these days I rather have my speed with a little extra active and passive safety even if it robs a little involvement perhaps ... must be getting old

 

The thing with this example is that you don't state whether you know what he(or she) was running? Was the car modified? It may have been running 450BHP for all you know.

Thats the trouble when comparing performance against 'someone you happen to meet along a road', you just havent a clue what you are comparing against!

 

Wow, I started something here didn't I. Seems the consensus is that in a drag race a standard UK Scooby can still live with a new age GTI, but the low lag torque delivery of these new cars makes it easier to access their performance. No problem if you are prepared to use the gear box in your old classic. I suspect in terms of ultimate grip, the new cars maybe win, on bigger tyres, on A/B road driving, it probably boils down to driver at the end of the day.

So, Im quite happy really, having spent only £2450 on a bog standard car that can still cut it with £18000 cars as a ten year old!! Cheers everyone.