This new Impreza body might be a five-door hatch to the previous iteration’s choice of four-door saloon or estate, but the mechanical make-up of the Impreza has remained throughout: a flat four engine (often turbocharged) driving all four wheels to win Subaru many a World Rally Championship and a reputation for hardcore, affordable performance cars rivalled only by Mitsubishi.
The flat four keeps the car’s centre of gravity low and sharpens its agility, while the drivetrain’s longitudinal layout makes it easier to provide full-time four-wheel drive. But this time around the body is more space-efficient.
It’s shorter but rides on a longer wheelbase (by 93mm) and wider tracks to provide more room inside, while the new multi-link rear suspension packages more compactly to provide a bigger boot.
The new car weighs a little more than the old one, though, coming in at 1530kg on MIRA’s scales versus 1493kg for the old car, and 58 per cent of that lies over the front wheels.
The 2.5-litre boxer engine is essentially the same as before, but a larger intercooler and variable valve timing lift its output by 20bhp to 296bhp, and the torque curve fattens slightly to peak 11lb ft higher at 300lb ft.
It’s hooked up to a six-speed gearbox and an all-wheel drive set-up that apportions torque front to rear via a viscous coupling, and from side to side using mechanical limited-slip differentials, as with the previous STi.
Also carried over, with mild modifications, is Subaru’s Driver Control Centre Differential (DCCD) which enables you to alter the amount of torque apportioned to the axles, to enhance either straight-line stability or the car’s agility through corners. And this is overlaid with adjustable throttle mapping, called Si-Mode.