very sad but true sure it will be cool in 15 years to have a hawkeye (swear blind that the Impreza is the best car on the planet)

 

Shauns hit the nail on the head.

The Impreza performance is good, but not as staggering as it once was. Rememebre you need a considerable amount of more power to pull away from another car. Most of the competition has caught up now and you need to tune an impreza nowadays to keep ahead of the game.

I think the main thing thats killed the impreza is the fact that theyre now worth sod all and being bought by children that dont know what theyre doing. Because of their price, every Tom, Dick and Harry has one and that makes them even less special.

The Ford Cosworth for example is 25 years old now and is still as special as it always was. Prices refelect this.

What will a 25 yera old Impreza be worth? Sod all, and nobody will care anyway.

Shame

 

I'm not sure the last bit is true,;do you remember how the Cossie ended it's life? Basically killed off by prohibitive insurance premiums because they had become the thieves car of choice.

Time has made us forget about that aspect of their history and left the memory of what a cracking car it was relatively unsullied. I think the same will happen to the classic Impreza once all the scallys have written off the sh*te ones.

I doubt the subsequent cars will be remembered as fondly as it's usually the car that started the ball rolling that gets the credit. Also, the classic was a true performance car leader of the pack, like the cossie, like the integrale and like the quattro. The new ages came a long and just didn't have the same magnitude of performance advantage over the opposition that the classic enjoyed.

I would say that though, I have a classic!

 

They lost their way, went soft and that is the main reason they are not what they were.

You can thank the yanks for a lot of the softness in the Subaru range!
You can also thank them for keeping the company afloat!

Companies like Litchfields really show us what the cars should be like.

 

Bog standard WRX maybe ... special editions (JDM or UK) will forever be worth money just like the Cossie

TX.

 

Spot on fella

 

Might be spot on, but lets hope it only a paasing moment...

The whole "lighter is better" trend now might just force them into making proper cars again.

 

Well i still like my Hawkeye as much as the day i bought it around 2.5 yrs ago - so there!!!

 

Its not just about the speed for me its the rawness and the feel of the classic Type RA that does it for me, these new cars might be just as quick but most are boring and dont feel as quick even though they are

Subaru's still turn heads, not always for the right reasons but they grab peoples attention, just hearing that boxer engine fire up does it for me the classics will be worth money in time when theres not so many about, esp the limit models and the STI RA's etc

 

No one seems to mention how our seemingly old hat subarus can go around twisty country roads or tight roundabouts, i had a big lardy twin exshaust merc come past at the weekend laughing at me obviously he had the jump on me as i was just tootling down the A57 bypass he wasnt so chuffed as i got along side, looked at his car then nodded at him then left him around the next roundabout ,the big diesels may have the torque as standard but they just dont handle when proper pushed even with all the fancy traction aids,but thats just my opinion.
And as a life long sports bike rider, mainly blades,. ive never had to drop gears to outdrag any car .

 

Subaru went wrong with the bugeye in 2001. I looked at a P1 sat next to a uk300 at a dealers. The P1 looked the business while the bugeye thing looked like a joke next to it. Needless to say I purchased a P1.

 

True, I cant see why they didnt evolve the classic rather than the radical change they made to the bugeye, IMO the new ages was the start of a slow death, the classic is the only one they have got right todate

 

well i quite like my 2007 hawkeye, but swap it for a classic? errrrrr no, its a very very old car and it looks even older and its about as aerodynamic and a bog standard house brick

the reason why newages are heavier is cos they had to meet every country's crash standards, so a heavier car = a safer car

 

i felt like a change afew months ago so took a blob sti out for a test drive lasted all of 5 mins got back in the classic and went home thinking you must be mad to get rid of this it is what it is a classic we all have are reasons for buying the models we drive and i for one would rather spend the money i was going to use on a new one keeping the classic alive for many years to come

 

Behave!!!

 

Well i think you`re wrong and I stand by my comment

 

There are some newages that are a lot different to the mainstream models, ok they are few and far between - Spec C's and the S202,S203 and S204.

I had a Hawkeye 2.5 WRX and was all set for a fair bit of modding - FP Green STi turbo, PE 650cc injectors etc etc. plus a remap to see just short of 400bhp but I realised that it would still 'only' ever be a modded WRX and still have the same inherent traits.

In the end I traded it in against an S202 and it is far removed from the standard newages and is much closer to how an Impreza should be.

 

In the next 10 years subaru ownership will change dramatically

most of the classic will be wrote off /engines blows up by the chavs and boyracers who run out of money /corners / and tarmac they will be loads scrapped .

the purists (like myself ) will wrap up the classics in cotton wool #

stored in garages in giant bubbles they will come out for the NBO 8-25 and will be judged as concours examples ,values will rise like the cosworths and RS fords

Not sure what will hapen to blobeyes ,bugeyes and the new shape hatch will contiue to develop with high performance 330/STi /Type 20s and Diesels will start to take over and save Subaru with fantastic torque and 500 to the tank and be the new performance car to own with sensible running costs

modifications of new shape hatches will continue ,allready there is some excellent examples in the uk as we follow USAs modding scene

so wrap up your classics and get new hatches as everyday cars and we will see how many of us will be at NBO 20

I know I will be there with my fleet

 

your right ,well i hope you are , my son is coming up to his first years of owning his mcrae series impreza ,when he gets on the road it will be a classic ,he s also has his 1st birthday on the same day ,he will be due his driving test in 2025 so a 74000 mile limited edition series mcrae (there wont be many of the 200 left then!) should be quite rare to sit the test in !!!!

 

As a tuner of classic cars from the 1920's onwards, I can state clearly that the cars stay the same. It's the owners that get lardy!

 

As a die hard Classic fan I've never felt the same way about the Newage. Yes the Spec-C and S models are good, but they just don't appeal. The classic was the car that made McRae and Burns great (I know RB was driving a Bug in 2001). The Bug/Blob/Hawk just diluted the legend IMHO. Subaru's problem is that they raised the bar so much in the 90s that they couldn't sustain that level of development.

Yes the Classic may not be the fastest any longer, but they'll give almost every 10 year newer car a good run for their money. And you'll have a lot of fun doing it

 

I can't think of anything as sad as wrapping an impreza, indeed any car, in cotton wool/a bubble for concourse competitions. Have avoided such competitions at all costs. One of my workmates has recently purchased such a Concourse car ( 3 door cosworth)and horror of horrors commutes in it every day.

 

Personally I’m not a fan of bugs, blobs or hawks but I think the current Impreza is highly under rated. It was designed with a lot of input from Petter Solberg and showed a lot of potential in its short life in the WRC.

Prodrive also showed its potential by slaying all the classics in the first couple of rounds of Scooby sprint although I realise they do have a lot more money/resources than all the other teams.

It’s just a shame it’s so damn heavy although I feel the need for modern safety devices is mostly to blame for this.

Looking at current specs and road tax costs etc, I don’t think I’ll be buying a car that wasn’t made in the 90’s any time soon.

 

Another plus with an old classic in another 7 years we wont have to pay road tax

 

Some of us like progress as others seem to prefer nostalgia. If that was the best, we would all be listening to Duran Duran and pulling the choke on our MK1 Escorts!

You still got a reel to reel audio player?

No one is right or wrong.... this is about opinion.

 

I have had 3 classic scoobs, 2 sti's and 1 uk turbo, all with 280-310bhp. I have however been out in a blobeye (thanks Paul!). It is the look of a MY99/00 that I really love, or a bog standard sti 4 with the front spolier. The newage cars are just to big and heavy for my liking. Yes, they have new suspension technology and a stiffer shell......but for what? The fact that they weigh 250kg more? I really don't get what Subaru were thinking with the 2001 model, alone the 2009 model!

The late classic shape impreza are just perfect. They just 'feel' right and with a couple of mods like exhaust, anti-lift kit and rear anti roll bar, there isn't much that can touch them, even on the roads today. Only another £1500 to save and I can start looking for a mint sti4!

 

and i have expressed mine, BTW nothing wrong with duran duran

 

True, the first classics had something like a six month waiting list, cant say ive ever heard of a waiting list for the newages...although i could be wrong

But i stand by my comments in saying things have gradually got worse when the newage came on the go

 

You're in for a shock. Or do you mean it'll be SORN'd due to suffering an uneconomic to repair engine failure

 

Isn't it 20 or 25 years and then a car becomes tax exempt?