Comparison Tests
From the September 2014 Issue of Car and Driver
You have heard plenty over the years about Subaru’s rally-inspired WRX. And, owing to its longer life span, you have probably heard even more about Volkswagen’s genre-defining hot hatch, the GTI. It’s now in its seventh generation.
Goodness knows, you’ve also heard plenty from us about the southern Ohio area of Hocking Hills around Cedar Falls. We’ve been such ardent and vocal fans of the area’s beautifully maintained and lightly traveled roads that even the Hocking Hills 2014 Official Visitors Guide magazine devotes a story to what it describes as the “now-legendary” Car and Driver loop.
So it seemed only right that we should make another pilgrimage to our de facto southern base with the new iterations of these two storied performance cars.
For 2015, Subaru completely reworked the WRX, basing it on the current Impreza sedan. While the hatchback version is no longer available, say “WRX” and the image that probably pops into mind is the notchback version anyway. And of course that imaginary WRX wears some hue of the medium-blue paint that Subaru has used since the old Colin McRae 555 World Rally glory days of the mid-’90s. No surprise, then, that our test car wore WR Blue Pearl.
Because it’s a WRX, it is—let’s just come out with it—aesthetically challenged. Subaru teased us with an extremely cool-looking WRX concept vehicle a couple of years ago but then came to its senses and produced a head-scratchingly awkward thing. All is right with the world.
Bolted into the new, slightly larger body is a turbocharged and direct-injected 2.0-liter boxer-four (a so-called FA-series engine) making 268 horsepower and emitting at least a hint of that typical Subaru exhaust-note thrum. It’s backed by a six-speed manual and, of course, comes standard with four-wheel drive. Our Premium-pack model stickers for $29,290.
It seems the seventh-gen GTI has been with us for a year or more, but it’s only just now going on sale in the U.S. Indeed, it was in our July 2013 issue that this very same new GTI, in Euro spec, dusted the Ford Focus ST in a comparison test in southern France. That explains why the saucy Ford wasn’t invited back for this round. Based on all-new architecture, the 2015 GTI is bigger in all dimensions except height, and it carries the newest EA888 turbocharged and dual-injected 2.0-liter inline-four making 210 horsepower in standard trim and 220 in a Performance package–equipped version, such as our test car. It also has a substantial bump in peak torque (to 258 pound-feet, up from 207) and now wears proper summer tires that previously were only occasionally available from the factory. The standard “Clark” plaid fabric seat inserts seem even more plaid-y, as well. Our low-spec model stickers for $28,305 with the Performance package ($1495) and Lighting package ($995).
As you can probably imagine, our days are long and arduous—what with the demands of our clearly well-deserved celebrity status in these parts—and so we must periodically retire to the relative anonymity of the South Bloomingville Tavern, a country bar on the loop that is so thoroughly country that its jukebox is stocked with music ranging from country to western (and also Mountain’s seminal hit, “Mississippi Queen”). There, we would deliberate the outcome of this comparison test . . . actually, that’s not true. We’d determined the winner much earlier in the day. This gave us ample time to discuss more pressing matters, such as the source of the appeal of Andy Capp’s Hot Fries (available behind the bar), the veracity of the local legend about the King Toad and his Urine-Filled Mushroom Chalice*, and also how long it would take me to get punched in the face if I didn’t stop (unintentionally) effecting a cartoonish Southern drawl.
* The Legend of the Kind Toad is little known, partly because we may have made it up.