Trunk Funk

MANILA, Philippines - There has been much debate over Subaru’s decision to come out with the hatch version of their cult classic, rally-proven sedans that dominated the Asian Pacific Rally Championships, but struggled over the last few years in the WRC against the Ford Focus and Citroen (you guessed it) hatches. Many were of the opinion that Subaru needed to chop off some overhangs and give it a more tapered rear if it was going to have any chance of getting that big, heavy butt over the finish line first.

I’ll leave it to you and a few buckets of beer to sort out whether it worked or not, but for those of you who thought that the Impreza hatch was really a sedan that had run out of ideas by the rear quarter panel window, here comes the real deal.

Introduced last month at the Manila International Auto Show, the new sedan is identical to the hatchback version from the headlights all the way up until the rear window. It’s from the last quarter panel window onwards that it takes on a whole new personality. The argument on which looks better will rage on long after this newspaper has wrapped several kilos of dead fish, so the question we’re here to answer is does it handle as well – if not better – than the hatch.

Flying all the way to San Francisco for the answer, I picked up a gleaming spark silver metallic test unit. Being a US version, this meant 265 horsepower that, sadly, will not be sold locally through Motor Image Pilipinas. Filipino buyers will have to make do with 230hp and a trip to Autoplus tuning store down the road. I wish I could tell you that you weren’t missing much, but on take off alone, you already feel the extra 35hp kick you in the spleen as you wake up the turbo just after 3000RPM.

The power delivery is just as impatient as it has ever been and requires clever modulation of the throttle to keep things on the boil yet still smooth enough to retain its balance through the corners. Everything is instant; there are no waiting lines here. It’s almost as if the car has ADD and is just looking for a place to throw a proper tantrum. The difference here is, the car remains remarkably well-behaved while it breaks the rules, if that makes any sense at all.

It is thoroughly entertaining in just about every sequence of corners as well as those long mundane straights. It also takes boredom quite well, handling peak hour traffic on the 101 in San Francisco like any other garden variety Japanese sedan. It is comfortable, yet with a bad temper when provoked. In this guise, as risky as it is for me to say it, the WRX starts to make a bit more sense than the STi. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no match of course for the violence of the 300hp STi, but it just closes the gap even more, while giving you a lot more comfort when you need to be Clark Kent more than you need to be Superman.

But back to the question: I would be lying shamelessly if I told you that I could feel any difference in the handling from hatch to sedan. If there is one, it is so negligible that not even the world’s best precision driver, Russ Swift, could detect it as he handbrake-turned the 2-liter version into a parallel parking spot in between two cars with just 33 cm of space to spare.

During the recent stunt show at the Manila International Auto Show last month, I asked Russ Swift point blank if he could notice any difference between the hatch and sedan. He said, “Aside from the spelling, it’s identical.”

The only last concern owners have brought up is luggage room. So to answer the cries of the hatch back owners who claim to not have enough of it, Russ quickly shoved a member of the audience into the trunk as he repeated the awesome maneuver that has inked him into the Guinness book of world records. Case closed. Or trunk, in this case.