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Subaru: it’s that odd car company that you’re pretty sure is Japanese, but a significant portion of their manufacturing is done here in the States.  It probably has one of the best and complete brands of any manufacturer in the world.  They are zeroed in on their demographics of the tuners, outdoorsy couples, and go anywhere families.  The culture of Subaru ownerships prompts discrete hand waves between club members on the highway.  The company name is so distinct it almost forces someone saying it into a slight smile with a fond recollection of a car they may or may not have owned.  The spokesman used to be Crocodile Dundee!  When you buy a model with a turbo Subaru automatically sends you a quarterly magazine with news and photos from the tuner scene and races being dominated by Peter Solberg in the World Rally Championship and Travis Pastrana in the Rally America.  This is truly exceptional pedigree for a mass produced car.

And now for the Impreza.  What the hell does “Impreza” even mean?  Does anybody know?  Perhaps after a late Thursday night and a flurry of technical drawings and sake the word was discovered scrawled on a wall the following morning.  Or even better, it’s a cryptic phrase that Tom Hanks is going to decipher along with the Subaru logo to solve Dan Brown’s first automotive themed novel.  Whatever it means, it has become an idiom in the automotive vernacular for sport, all-wheel drive, and fun.

I drove the base model Impreza and there’s still much to talk about.  Nearly every engine that Subaru produces starts as a boxer four cylinder engine.  The cylinders are horizontally opposed in a flat layout with the cams timed so the engine has zero mechanical moment, reducing vibration.  (Picture Muhammad Ali bashing his knuckles together in front of his body, hence “boxer engine”.)  The flat engine allows for a much lower center of gravity which is ideal for racing.  The power-plant feeds Subaru’s all wheel drive system.  The next step up in the Impreza line is the WRX which adds a turbocharger, and various other sporty handling components.  The WRX STI adds an even bigger turbo and gets some serious rally inspired styling queues.  (Note: there is a direct correlation between the Impreza’s performance and the number of letters in the nomenclature.  See 2009 Subaru WRX STI Spec C )

It’s a fun car.  Some fuel economy is sacrificed for performance, don’t expect much more than 26 mpg’s on the highway.  And there is no other car in it’s class that I would depend on to get me through a foot of powder.  (Translation for people who live in sensible climates: powder is really cold and fluffy rain.)

Impreza owners spend a lot of time under the hoods of their cars.  The Impreza tuner scene is huge.  There is a seemingly infinite source of information from on-line forums for Impreza owners.  And they run the gamut from first upgrades to beyond street legal.  And parts are plentiful.

Unfortunately something has gone way wrong at Subaru recently.  Everything is fine under the hood, it’s still bananas as normal.  I am severely irked by the styling decisions that have been made between the 2nd and 3rd generation Impreza.  Take a look at the emperor’s new clothes and decide for yourself .  It looks bland, beige, and Korean.  It’s like if you had just seen that Britney Spears music video with her skin-tight red catsuit, and then the next day hearing her announce she was becoming a communist and would only perform in tan Carhartt coveralls.  WTF.  

Subaru World Rally Team debuted the latest generation Impreza mid-season in 2008, then Subaru pulled out of the World Rally Championship completely at season’s end.  Coincidence?  I imagine that management could only take six months of looking at the new Impreza’s WRC promotional media before they grew despondent and threw in the towel.  But company officials continue to insist their decision was due to some financial crisis…or something.  

Or perhaps this was a business strategy.  By making the Impreza look boring, the Subaru enthusiast would be forced to purchase a higher trim model with more visual bells and whistles just so to get to where it looks decent.

I loathe the style of the new Impreza from any angle.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Subaru has really lost something intrinsic to their brand and culture.  And now I’m depressed.  It makes me want to withdraw from writing this post.

Automotive/Celebrity Similitude: The non-trashy Britney Spears from 2000, but wearing the tan Carhartt overalls.  Bummer.

2009 Subaru Impreza 2.5i

Engine: 2.5 liter boxer engine

Drive: AWD

Transmission: 4-speed automatic with SPORTSHIFT®

Category: Compact car

It is no secret that each gasoline company puts additives in their gas to distinguish their products.  A primary function of these additives is to help keep the insides of your engine clean.  Once the gasoline has combusted in the engine cylinder, the major by-product is carbon.  Engine’s are designed to expel the carbon as exhaust.  Unfortunately the carbon has a nasty habit of building up on certain engine components such as the valves.  If enough carbon builds up it can actually inhibit performance and efficiency.  Each gasoline company spends boatloads on research to develop the best additive to fight this gunk build-up, and then being able to wrap convincing advertising campaigns around it.

In the last couple of months Shell (Royal Dutch Shell) has introduced their “all-new Nitrogen Enriched Gasolines” containing the latest and greatest additives from their R&D.  And of course a huge marketing campaign was initiated to promote it.  It included radio spots, tv commercials, and on-line advertising.  

My problem is with Shell’s choice of words when describing how the active cleaning molecule (containing nitrogen) reduces engine gunk.  In their press release Shell claims this new additive is “designed to seek and destroy engine ‘gunk’.”  Or on some of the YouTube videos featuring aloof and affable scientists, the language is “it seeks.  it destroys.  it protects.”  When matched with the cool computer graphics of flames and edgy video cuts, you would think that Bruce Willis had come out with his own line of gasoline.  But for a lot of people I think Shell’s choice of words is misleading at best and possibly deceptive.  Some people might get the impression that Shell scientists have figured out a way to program nano-bots to ride chariots of nitrogen and conquer the evil engine gunk.  Actually that sounds really exciting.  Think of how much more engaging driving would be if you knew that there were millions of microscopic Russell Crowes fighting for the unsoiled freedom of your Coliseumesque engine cylinders.

Obviously I think there needs to be less snake oil and more fact in this kind of advertising.  And I’m sure that the marketing team at Shell is always dancing on the line of what the government regulators will allow.  The other possibility is to ensure the viewer is properly educated.  Maybe a disclaimer could be shown warning that this advertisement is only appropriate for viewers familiar with molecular chemistry and mechanical engineering.  That sounds like an ideal solution.

Or maybe the individual can’t be trusted to stay wise to cunning marketing ploys and the government is needed to step in and regulate with a big rubber stamp.  How about we don’t allow companies to market boring products as exciting ones.  I doubt there’s anyone who sits and waits for Friday night to come around so they can get together with their friends and rave about million year old hydrocarbons mixed with an inert gas.  But millions of people will rush out to see Brussel Crillis and see the latest CGI fueled blockbuster.  (I’m one of them.)  And on opening night there may be a curious spike in Shell gasoline purchases.  Hmm.

I love democracy.  (I really do.)  Unfortunately sometimes our elected officials do silly things like write silly laws.  Already our highways and byways are a maze of regulation and convention.  (For people learning to drive, it’s like learning a second language.)  I worry that in the future politicians may try to turn our highway network into the Authoritarian Interstate System.  And it will all be done for the sake of “economic savings,” “environmental protection,” or “the public’s safety.”  (Applying spin is the true craft of a politician.)  I sat down and tried to think like a politician and I came up with several ways to improve America’s roads.  

-The Proper Fog-light Usage Act: Fog-lights are a favorite accessory for sports cars and SUVs.  These low mounted lights provide greater visibility when you’re driving through a fog bank.  Unfortunately there is a growing trend of drivers who use these supplementary lights during non-foggy conditions, either by gross negligence or a desire to show off their extra accessory to other drivers.  These lights are quite powerful and are continuously drawing amps from the respective vehicles’ electrical system which is fed by an alternator powered by the engine, and adversely affecting the mileage efficiency.  The improper use of fog-lights is estimated to waste 100 trillion million barrels of crude oil per second in the United States alone.  With the passage of this act, local and federal highway officers will be authorized to pull over vehicles with fog-lights in use during “non-foggy conditions” as determined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in real-time for each county in the United States.  Additional funds of $100 billion will be allocated annually to NOAA to support this Act and it is anticipated it will create thirteen extremely geeky tech jobs.

-Automotive Color Correction Initiative: In an effort to combat rising fuel costs and to help constituents save money at the pump, lawmakers in several Southwest states are proposing legislation that will help “drivers make smarter decisions regarding the color of their vehicle.”  Darker colors absorb more of the Sun’s energy than lighter colors which reflect that energy.  On hot summer days a black car is going to absorb much more energy than the same model car with white paint.  The black car’s air conditioner will need to work that much harder to maintain a comfortable temperature in the cabin.  By instituting a “color tax” on new vehicles it is hoped that the individual will see greater fuel efficiency and money saved.  For the environment it is hypothesized that the realized fuel savings will decrease the average distance polar bears will need to swim to find food.

-Remote Car Starter Ban: Experts agree that the remote car starter is currently the most overlooked enemy of the environment with regards to personal transportation.  An appalling amount of green house gasses are released into the atmosphere for the sake of gluteal comfort.  A few outspoken and ardent environmentalists hope the next generation of drivers will associate the illicit nature of remote car starters with that of meth labs.

-Dead Weight Checkpoints: Recent federally funded research has discovered that millions of vehicles on the highways are carrying excess weight.  More precisely, dead weight is described as the portion of the vehicle weight which does not fall under the following categories:

1) Weight which contributes to the operation or safety of the vehicle

2) Weight which is associated with the human occupants (including clothing and personal effects on the person)

3) Weight of objects which are to be used at the destination of the journey

Sobriety Checkpoint personnel and equipment will be transitioned into daytime use as Dead Weight Checkpoints.  The checkpoint officer will perform an initial visual scan of the interior of the vehicle before deciding if a more detailed assessment is prudent.  A detailed assessment will include a manual search of the vehicle under the legal auspices of probable cause (i.e. there is reasonable belief that the driver has committed an environmental crime against Blue Whales).  A trained and certified Dead Weight officer will select items deemed outside of the acceptable weight categories, and weigh these items independently to calculate a fine.  Of course special permits will be made available to citizens for exceptional circumstances.  All pets will need to be registered and given a “dead weight exception” collar.