DRIVERS LOG: 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX Five-Door:

Comments by AutoWeek editorial staffers on a car that’s been in our fleet:

EXECUTIVE EDITOR WES RAYNAL: ’Tain’t a bad driver, this WRX. In fact, it’s a whole lot of fun. Even as it feels as if Subaru has softened it up some (not a bad thing, in my book, because it wasn’t softened up too much), the WRX is still one of the more fun cars to toss around that I’ve driven this year. It has good acceleration (you have to keep stirring the gearbox, though, which is sort of a chore, because the shifter is crappy) and grip beyond the imagination. And the engine sounds just as agricultural as ever.

I’m one of the few people who actually like the way this car looks. I vastly prefer the five-door to the sedan.

And did Subaru ever cheapen up the cabin materials. They look okay but feel mighty cheap, a trend in cars costing $20,000-something, not one in the $30,000s. It has nice grippy seats, at least.

A lot of cars I’ve driven this year are greatly improved over the cars they’re replacing (Chevrolet Malibu, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Audi A4). This isn’t one of them. It’s more refined but still a rather crude beast. And what makes automakers think they can take their $17,000 econoboxes, put turbos in ’em and ask 30 grand? The nerve!

SENIOR EDITOR KEVIN A. WILSON: Let’s see how many ways I can disagree with our esteemed executive editor. Start with the interior materials. While I think they’re not fully up to snuff for a $30,000 price, they’re hardly cheapened from the previous WRX. I’m not sure that would be possible.

Maybe Wes liked the old car more than I ever did, because what’s happened with this car, in my view, is that it has grown up. It’s less noisy and thrashy inside, which some might call soft. The evidence of softness I found in the ride-and-handling department had more to do with fore-and-aft pitch. When the car is accelerating, there’s a lot of weight transfer to the back; the nose comes up some, but it’s more that the tail squats. The old WRX did this, too, but it was a shorter car, and I don’t think it was quite as evident there.

Bad shifter? It ain’t a Porsche or a BMW, but I had no trouble with it. We’re talking about what is basically a front-wheel-drive platform, and among similar cars, I’d say the shifter is about mid-pack. Could it feel better? Yes. Could it function better? I don’t see how–I never had trouble finding a gear or making a quick shift. The synchros work, the heel-and-toe thing is set up okay, and so on.

If I have a beef with this car, it has to do with throttle operation: It’s biased toward a big surge off the line and very hard to modulate at low throttle openings. The car just charges forward, accelerating with only the weight of your foot on the pedal. Trying to stay on the no-tickets side of the law in 25- and 40-mph zones takes conscious effort. It’s a 224-hp car that, up to about 4000 rpm, feels as if it’s got 300. It wants to give you a taste of STI, I guess. This is cool if you’re a boy-racer type, and I suppose that defines how the WRX is distinct from a like-sized, like-priced base Audi A4 2.0T, which has about 10 percent less horsepower.

I also think Subaru finally has masked the sewing-machine sound of its flat-four sufficiently. I thought it was all sound insulation until I stood outside and listened to the car with the hood open. That old sound, one that reminded me of ’60s Volkswagen Beetles when it wasn’t reminding me of our ’86 Subaru GL wagon, is barely there and only if you listen hard.

2008 Subaru Impreza WRX Five-Door

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