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Subaru WRX STI on the Col de Turini: Free Climber
SUBARU WRX STI
FREE CLIMBER
Words by Andrea Balti
Photos by S. Lomax
I define it almost as a pilgrimage, that of the Col de Turini. Every year, with those lunatics residing in my same office, we go there at least a couple of times, excluding the big day of the event we organize the first Sunday of July and that includes dozens of sports cars and supercars, ready to chew that blessed asphalt. One wonders how something like this can be so full of meaning to make you spend sleepless nights waiting to put the wheels on a ground that has seen and still see motorsport champions leaving indelible tire marks at every hairpin bends, among the most fun and challenging on which you could possibly drive. If I had to choose my ideal “dream road” it would be this and having the opportunity to act in person during the patrolling day for the event has been an experience that I will cherish for a long time.
All this would not have had the same meaning if we have been there with a simple car and I never thought I was lucky enough to drive a legend like the most brilliant Subaru ever made, the first road brawler that comes to mind when you hear the word “rally”. Not an Impreza like those who have skimmed the walls towards Peira-Cava, but the great-grandson of the blue and gold lightning bolt led by Solberg from 2000 to 2007 (not including the hatchback version), the new WRX STI, updated in 2018 and now sole survivor in what was one of the most fierce battles for JDM sport sedans supremacy, after Mitsubishi decided to focus on crossovers and city cars, ending the existence of the Lancer Evo.
The main ingredients are those that make the STI recognizable even miles away, at least from a visual point of view, since the original exhaust is not really appropriate to the arrogance of the four tailpipes at the rear. A defect you’d easily solve in a couple of hours at your favorite workshop, fitting an aftermarket exhaust system giving free rein to the unmistakable 4-cylinder boxer hidden under the ubiquitous air intake, although less pronounced that in the past. The engine, joy and pain for every self-respecting Subaru fan, is still the 2.5cc that we know so well, with its opposing cylinders and a single turbo to snort asking you to keep the revs as high as possible. The road that goes up from Menton towards Sospel starts narrow and busy and then spread out and leave more room for fun. The fact of having a nice manual 6-speed gearbox with such a precise clutch makes you want to throw yourself through bends with the knife between your teeth and put the chassis of the MY18 STI under pressure, thus baptized to underline the small but substantial differences in comparison to the MY15. Among the aesthetic changes we have a significantly improved front, thanks to a new bumper, a new design of the central grille and new headlights, which makes the nose of this STI not only more sharpened, but more frowning and intent on not leaving prisoners alive. The big darkened wheels also have a renewed design and host a braking system worthy of a standing ovation, designed in collaboration with Brembo: self-ventilated brake discs with six-piston brake calipers on the front and two pistons opposed at the rear. The clamps have the STI badge and are finished in bright yellow.
In addition, the sample under test, despite Subaru offers an almost infinite list as standard equipment, has the S-Package, an extra kit that includes a glass sunroof, electronically adjustable sports front seats, infotainment system with integrated satellite navigation and a handful of other gadgets not necessarily essential for your driving involvement. Precisely this aspect, always inextricably linked to the Pleiades sports car, promises to be further refined thanks to a slight update to the release of the maximum torque available, now of 407Nm at 4,000 rpm, while on the model year 2015 it stopped at 393Nm. A very small difference that many would call imperceptible, but that makes the car’s behavior different between the two models. And then we know very well, the Turini does not allow half measures and so, after having done a good part of today’s homework and performed part of the shots, each transfer phase becomes a moment of automotive intimacy with one of the absolute queens of the rally world. The symmetrical all-wheel drive offers truly incredible grip and tire size (245/35) increases the feeling of total control in fastest corners. Properly attacking the hairpin bends you immediately appreciate the rigidity of the chassis, which if one side does not bother when driving in the city, proves to be a real winning weapon when it is necessary to work hard in sudden changes of direction and that would put cars with a price far more challenging in crisis. Through the SI-Drive it is possible to make the response of the classic controls (steering, clutch and throttle) sharper, while using the manual adjustment it is possible to increase the amount of traction on the rear axle or on the front one, also assisted by a self-locking differential that intervenes to better distribute the torque between the front and the rear wheels.
Being a press car and therefore equipped with stock exhaust system, I feel a bit ‘lack of violence while releasing the gas or coasting and I really wish the mumbling of the boxer could vent its full voice, because on the MY18 you do not even feel the slightest uncertainty that we had found in our test a couple of years ago. Horsepower still is at 300 and once exceeded the 3000/3500 rpm you start feeling that the thrust of the turbo becomes more insistent, up to splash in a moment towards the red line and make sure that the right hand reaches the lever of the gearbox. The dialogue with the clutch pedal is getting faster and faster and I try to take advantage of every available rpm before moving on to the higher gear. Despite the car body is not small and can comfortably accommodate five adults, the STI weighs a ton and a half, not bad if we count that it is a car with four-wheel drive and virtually any type of electronic gadget you expect to find on a contemporary vehicle. What has remained unchanged, however, is the driving pleasure, an gorgeous steering communication and a total visibility on everything that stands before me, one of the most evocative natural landscapes for petrolheads like us.
Nothing is missing today and since life is measured in moments like these, being able to drive on this magical road at the wheel of one of my favorite cars makes the whole thing even more exciting. To add chili in here, there is also a handbrake lever, happy partner when you decide to leave common sense parked home. And forgive me if I have not tested the Harman/Kardon sound system and if the sat-nav is not the most reactive and often tells you to make U-turns or take junctions that would get you in shameful delay, the WRX STI is all about fun and not only dispenses it in industrial quantities, but behaves like an old childhood friend, it’s the perfect gear to experience emotions in the world that we love so much, that of driving. Certainly is also a friend of the gas station, in fact I found a significantly higher consumption than the MY15 and this does not mean that the +14Nm available here are guilty, but rather the fact that the power delivery is more substantial and this encourages you to always press more, also entrusting you to the infinite traction that you have at disposal on any type of surface. In the city, consider drinking at least 15.1 l/100km, on extraurban something like 8.4l/100km and therefore we have a mixed cycle of 10.9l/100km: to these figures declared by the house obviously add your right foot … but after all my grandmother used to say that if you want to eat some jam you have to accept the fact of getting a bit dirty.
The climb has no indecisions and taking advantage of the almost total lack of traffic on the road that leads from Moulinet to the top of the Turini, I give free rein to those that until just a few hours ago were only images drawn in my head. The run does not end at the summit, but we go further, up to Camp d’Argent, where the bad weather of the past few days has done slaughter of trees and made the last bit of road inaccessible – for our photographer the opportunity to put the car here and there without worrying about traffic or other factors that sometimes force you to acrobatics and high-risk situations. There is still time to drive down to La Bollène-Vésubie, a stretch of about a dozen kilometers of the most challenging of the MonteCarlo rally and I still find myself discovering how this WRX STI is a tireless climber. Its free style adapts to your driving style, to your skills, and once you have reached the driver/car tune, you really start finding how much it can do. It is not a widow-maker like some other cars entered in the dreams of many fans, but a wonderful sports sedan with a distinguished family tree and an impressive motorsport pedigree, now also able to sit in the boring city traffic, if and when it will be necessary. And then that huge spoiler at the back, that could not really miss here.
SUBARU WRX STI
Layout – front-engined, all wheel drive
Engine – 4 cylinder boxer 2.457cc – turbo
Transmission – 6-speed manual gearbox
Power – 300 hp @ 6.000 rpm
407 Nm @ 4.000 rpm
Weight – 1.527 kg
Acceleration – 5,2 sec.
Top Speed – 250 kph
Price – from €46.590 (as tested from € 50.590)
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