2006 Subaru STI Review!

When you think rallycar, what comes to mind? For most of you, Subaru will be the first thing you associate with rally. The STI is passenger car infused with Subaru’s rally pedigree. How does it do in this guise?

As majority of us know, this is powered by a 2.5 L boxer engine, in tandem with an angry gerbal sending compressed air through the intake. The car has a 6 speed manual helping you decide the ratio of torque that is sent to all four wheels. This car I drove has about every bolt on you could imagine before getting into heads and bottom end. The car put down about 330 AWHP when tuned, pretty healthy I would say. The car is lowered on KW coilovers, reduced roll brought to you buy Cobb swaybars and stiffened with Cusco strut tower bars. Oh and don’t forget those beautiful Volk CE28’s.

The car accelerates like most turbo four cylinders do, lag lag lag and BAM the turbo lights up the drivetrain sending you down the road like you were just launched out of a catapult. The gears are short meaning you are rowing through the crisp shifter consistently. The constant motion of shifting makes you feel like a rally hero battling the corners to come.

The car is crisp and quick on turn in. If you power out too early, the car will pull out, so you have to line the nose of the car perfectly with your “gateway” exit. Once your corner exit angle is acquired, its hammer down and you shoot over to the next corner. You repeat this over and over, the short gears assure you do so in the quickest manner possible. I caught myself downshifting when I really didn’t need to, I am use to cars with longer gears. Luckily the Brembo brakes were there to slow me down every time.

Now we can talk about how the car has four doors making it a good daily, and the AWD means its safe in the snow… but I don’t care about that. I want to barrel down a canyon road littered with trees on the side. I want the ferocity of its acceleration and cornering speed to give people nightmares. I want to send it down a gravel road, pitch the car in sideways, power out and leave a massive cloud of smoke behind me, also leaving a massive grin on my face. I want to feel like a rally hero. I want to feel like Colin McCrae when I hop in this car, and that is what it does.

It is a shame more people don’t treat the STI like this. I feel bad for the stigma Subaru owners have right now. You know what I am talking about. I feel most of these cars live in parking lots and look forward to highway pulls. Thats cool and all, but you are missing out on what Subaru has given us, a taste of there rally pedigree and performance. Because of this, it has brought out more cars to compete like the Focus RS and the Golf R above, which is great to see the market deliver more. STI, what you have done is a great thing for the car community, even if some don’t appreciate your hard work.

As usual, here is my video review, please give it a watch. I feel this is my best video to date. Give it a like and subscribe if you enjoyed it. Also if you are gung-ho about turbo AWD monsters I have the Golf R review on my channel as well. Thank you guys for reading this!