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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

What first comes to mind when thinking about Japan?  Sushi, samurai, haiku, sake, Sony, and the easiest flag in the world to remember.  It was the setting for the most ridiculous of Tom Cruise’s movies.   Washington DC during the month of March is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see thanks to Japan’s gift of cherry trees.  Dance Dance Revolution was fun a couple of times, but has since fallen to the American grown Rock Hero or Guitar Band or whatever.  Japan introduced the world to animé and consequently epileptic seizures.  Japan’s engineering prowess built the bullet train.  One would only expect high build quality and craftsmanship from such a country and it’s exemplified in the rock solid brands of the native Honda and Toyota.  Lexus is the luxury division of Toyota and Lexus builds the IS 250.

 
So what is the Lexus IS 250.  This car is Lexus’ contender in the highly competitive entry-level luxury car category.  It is going toe to toe with the likes of the Audi A4, BMW 3-series, Saab 9-3, Acura TL, Volvo S60, Mercedez-Benz C-class, Infinite G35, …  and the list goes on.  As an American it worries me that my country does not have a car in this category that readily comes to mind.  (I had to think a bit before I came up with the Lincoln MKZ.)  These are the cars the MBA students buy 30 seconds after they are offered a job.

 
The three digits in the nomenclature indicate the displacement of the engine.  With some very careful math we can calculate that this Lexus IS has a 2,500,000 microliter (V6) engine.  During my test drives I found this engine to have just the right amount of balance between power and fuel economy.  But not enough to justify having the paddle shifters.  (If you’re really into the idea of shifting with your pinkies, definitely spring for the 3.5 liter engine…and then move to Vermont.)  
 

Lexus is renowned for their styling around the instrumentation display.  It seems to me that they are intent on mimicking those chronograph type watches in fashion magazines that cost $50,000 and are worn exclusively by well endowed Italian male models.  The first generation Lexus IS came with a gorgeous and daring arrangement but the instrumentation has since become more conventional.  Though it’s still stunning and you may find yourself pondering the precision of Olympic swimming pools while driving at highway speeds.  The illumination color scheme is predominantly white and my only gripe is that it’s too much at night.  After having driven many different vehicles at night I have decided that the red and blue illumination schemes always seem easier on the eyes and are less distracting.

The Lexus IS has very distinct styling.  There is no mistaking this car when it approaches you from any direction.  (Kudos for this to the Lexus styling team.)  This is the car for the professional because it exudes careful taste and decisiveness.  You can almost hear it calculating and managing the risk of your hedge fund in it’s on-board computer’s spare processing cycles.  

 
On the snow covered roads of Maine this car was very sure footed, even with the stock all-season tires.  The Traction Control computer would sound an alarm the moment a wheel started to slip, as if it were begging you to put the world back together again.  Contrast this to my Subaru which stays obediently silent during slippage.  (I prefer the latter.)  In the morning I woke up to a temperature of -12F and the push-button keyless ignition had no problems getting the engine to roll over.
 

On the highway this car will threaten the ego of a minimum-wage adolescent.  They will then feel compelled to assert themselves by pulling alongside and downshifting emphatically .  The Lexus IS does not have enough power to put away even a slightly modified Honda.  Beware.

This car does exactly what you would expect it do.  It seats two people very comfortably in entry-level luxury, and two additional people with a modest amount of knee-space.  It will reliably get you from A to B with an entry-level amount of sophistication.  

 
Finally this brings me to the inauguration of my rating metric: the Automotive/Celebrity Similitude.  I liken the Lexus IS 250 to George Clooney.  The Lexus is good at exactly what it was meant to do, but it may never carry an award winning show.  The Lexus IS is dependable and has the staying power to ensure that this is a good choice no matter the role it is playing.

2009 Lexus IS 250 AWD (base MSRP $34,395)

Engine: 2.5 liter V6
Drive: AWD
Transmission: 6 speed automatic (w/ paddle shifters)
Category: Entry-level Luxury