Short Take Road Test
From the April 2011 Issue of Car and Driver
TESTED
Testing Subaru’s Legacy 2.5GT Limited has proven frustrating. And expensive. In its initial acceleration runs, our first GT sheared a half-shaft. Once repaired, the car made a second appearance, and a second half-shaft was bifurcated.
As another GT arrived, so, too, did the season’s first blizzard, an Arctic apocalypse that would have cowed Admiral Peary and easily overwhelmed the Legacy’s 18-inch summer-spec Bridgestones. What luck, huh?
The 2.5GT Limited, starting at $32,120, represents the sportiest of Legacy sedans. Its turbocharged 2.5-liter four produces 265 horsepower—95 horses beyond what the base 2.5i can muster, and nine more than the 3.6R’s 3.6-liter flat-six.
With half-shafts finally spinning instead of flailing, the 2.5GT tackled 60 mph in an aggressive 5.4 seconds, and the quarter-mile was dispatched in 14.1 seconds at 100 mph. By contrast, the base Legacy, fitted with a CVT, required 8.7 seconds to attain 60 mph. And the flat-six, with standard five-speed automatic, performed the task in 6.4.
The 2.5GT Limited comes with a six-speed manual only, and ours was gussied up with a short-throw kit, part of an unnecessary $1154 option pack that includes a boost gauge that looks like a geothermal event bulging up through the dash. Clutch feel is dandy, but the shifter’s gates are resistant and overall effort is high. At step-off, moreover, clutch slipping is sometimes necessary to coax the all-wheel drive’s many cogs, pinwheels, and whirligigs into motion.
The GT’s suspension is buttoned down, with body motions conscientiously controlled, and the ride remains settled and supple. The steering is oddly heavy and somewhat leaden at low speeds but sharpens acceptably as digits accrue. Funny that Subaru has spent tens of millions to acquire a legitimate rally heritage, yet this car is fitted with no hand brake.
Just north of 2500 rpm, the engine climbs on boost, summoning a butt-wallop that many of us last experienced in grade school. It’s a sudden kick in the pants that reliably illuminates traction-control warnings if the road is damp.
Unfortunately, peaky powerplants also have the habit of snapping heads. The 2.5GT is fun, but it’s a car that proves tricky to drive smoothly. Which had us yearning for the refinement and more-than-adequate performance of the 3.6R, which fetches $6400 less than the 2.5GT Limited and thus earns our nomination as the Legacy for discriminating adults.
