New car shopping

[Psycho_Biker]

The regular Impreza with the standard (non turbo) engine has neither good performance nor good fuel consumption. Friend of mine had one ... he ended up selling it and buying a Jetta.

Not all front-drive cars are a mess of understeer. There are plenty of non-mundane front-drive hatches to pick from.

Honda has finally seen the light, and brought the Civic hatch. At launch of the new Civic, you couldn't get the turbo engine with manual transmission but apparently that has been fixed. The new Civic is supposed to be a huge improvement over the ho-hum last couple of generations.

Try a current-generation Mazda 3 before you knock it.

Try a Focus/Fiesta, too. Most of the knocks against those concern the automatic transmission - but if you're buying manual, it's not an issue. Not sporty enough? Try the Fiesta ST.

And try a Golf GTI.

I just got a Fiesta ST this month and it's pretty damn cool. Hard to beat for the money really. The thing can put down its power no problem as boost is restricted in 1st and 2nd gear. Handles like nothing I've ever driven and pretty good on gas. Just a little bit small if you need luggage space or have kids. The bigger Focus ST is cool too but if you must have AWD there is the Focus RS. Then, as cool as the Focus RS is, for the money I would honestly rather have the Golf R. I've seen the DSG equipped Golf R with a stage 1 tune get into the 12's for 1/4 mile. Interior is quite nice too. The WRX STI seems overpriced to me but it's still a fast and fun car.

 

[Psycho_Biker]

Oh and the new Golf GTI has a LSD standard so puts power down well and doesn't understeer bad at all from what I've seen.