The best-value car in Fresh Zealand – Motoring with Dave Moore
1/Four This is the best-value car in Fresh Zealand (Dave More/Supplied)
Subaru does things differently in the family car business. While competitors use pretty generic transverse fours, Subaru uses flat-fours, mounted lengthways. Others stick to front or at least two-wheel drive, while all Subes are all-wheel-drive, at least in our market.
It’s that way with the fresh Impreza 5-door hatchback, which is out on its own in the C-segment (Corolla/Concentrate country), and we love the genre in Fresh Zealand (even in the face of the trend known as crossover or light SUV land.)
When you buy a five-door hatch, you usually do so to love its practicality without going to a utter wagon. Subaru’s fresh global platform on which the Impreza sits has is its vertical suspension elements set further apart by about Two.Five cm, which helps widen the flow space and increase that practicality. It’s also helped by a widened access hatch and a similarly scooped-out fountain area, the added aperture width of 10cm will please those whose budget won’t open up to Subaru’s least expensive wagon – the Outback.
As a matter of fact, punters only have to have a budget two-thirds of an Outback’s outlay to get into the Impreza Two.0i S, and after spending a week with the car, using it as family-plus-dog transport, I can’t see much reason anyone would need to spend more than this cheapest of current Subarus’ sticker of $29,990 for fundamental transport.
The Impreza’s ground-up fresh platform affords improved crash influence spectacle and a stiffer structure in general which makes for better torsional rigidity and commensurate gains in chassis dynamics. It’s all achieved by seven metres of adhesive bonding and expanded use of high-tensile steel.
The fresh car is powered by a revised version of the FB20 direct-injected Two.0-litre putting out one hundred twelve kilowatts power and one hundred ninety seven Nm torque ratings are delivered slickly and without drama, through a continuously variable automatic. It’s pleasingly brisk, without setting the world on fire, but it doesn’t use much gas either, despite carrying around a four-wheel-drive system and explosions of kit – I managed 7.2L/100km without even attempting.
The old Impreza wagon used to be seen as sort of a puny SUV, and in latest years that job has been done by the XV or Crosstrek five-door (the fresh one is due later this year) which permits our Impreza to assume the role of a smart-looking well-sorted hatchback for those on a budget who appreciate safety and modern tech and love driving.
Some may ask "Who needs all-wheel-drive if you don’t go off-road?" but the security displayed by the Impreza S on moist, leaf-strewn roundabouts, badly cambered corners and icy surfaces soon sets the common sense straight. And that’s without including the fact that similarly-sized and tooled competitors in this bracket, can charge four or five thousand dollars more and still not suggest AWD as part of the package.
The Impreza’s fresh platform rails slightly lower than the old one and loves a slightly lower centre of gravity compared with the previous model and a lower kerb weight of 1350kg. Working from the strut front and multilink rear suspensions mounted to stiffer subframes on the fresh chassis keeps assets control well in palm and there’s little pitching, even over Christchurch’s wicked cracked chicanery.
And yet the Impreza comforts its occupants well over crevices and surface violates even on the Subaru’s silver and black 18-inch rims. The sporting BRZ coupe’s quicker steering ratio is employed in the two thousand seventeen Impreza and the entire chassis has a crispness and sharpness that I don’t recall from previous Imprezas of any denomination, hot or otherwise.
The car’s turn-in is incisive and faithful, with the steering communicating lucidly with the driver without a skerrick of kickback. This is a truly delightful ‘driver’s car’ per se, not just in its ordinary family hatch class.
The accommodation is well sorted and laid-out for four large-sized occupants and a fifth will slide in in the centre-rear position if required. Up front, the chairs are well padded and afford terrific side support (just as well with the car’s standards of grip and treating).
If there’s a complaint about the sumptuous and lightly adjustable driving position it’s to do with the side or door mirrors, which are mounted some distance back from the front poles and immobilized quarter lights. The driver must make a deliberate and fairly serious head glance to use the left-hand mirror. A mere stir of the eyes is nowhere near enough.
The seating is clad with a mix of dark grey corded and mesh fabrics with closed bolster seams look as if they will last well, while the car’s plastic surfaces are cinched together well and the stitched soft-touch dash surfaces look and feel very classy.
In front of the two forward occupants, a slender screen for economy graphs and bars sits atop a much larger screen that controls and displays functions associated with the car’s standard Apple Car Play features. It also reminds us of the high equipment level afforded in the car, which emerges to carry more kit and kaboodle than some $40k plus offerings.
The sound system is excellent, the duo-zone air-con quick and efficient and the general switchgear accomplish and very effortless to learn and use.
On the safety front, the Impreza adds lane departure and collision warnings as well as parking sensors and reversing screen to the usual ESP, traction control, Six pack, and half dozen airbags for a high five starlet NCAP rating, as well as the very elusive Top Safety Choice rating from the US’s Insurance Institute of Highway Safety.
The shapely fresh Impreza S supplies brilliantly on a accurately incredible model switch, mixing common sense functionality with a fine-driving chassis, all-wheel-drive and a thick equipment and safety manifest in a price bracket that usually consists of pretty abate fare.
Listen to the interview for Dave Moore’s total segment on motoring.
