Eleven hot blooded cars. Five drivers. Only one winner. After much deliberation and even more driving, we've picked the Performance Car of the Year and the two runners up.

Third: Subaru Impreza WRX STi

It should have won, were it not for that rip-off price…

There have been a good few statements in the build-up to this, that fly in the face of one of my favourite sayings – ‘if grandma had balls, I would not be here.’ And most of them epitomised what that little saying represents.

But this one doesn’t – if the Subaru Impreza STi was priced in line with overseas tags, it would have been our Performance Car of the Year…

There is absolutely no reason why Subaru South Africa should have not priced its Impreza flagship just as they have in Britain, rather than plain and simple ripping off the SA power freak for the privilege of owning this piece of automotive brilliance.

Follow me for a minute in an arithmetical explanation:

We may have whipped the otherwise brilliant Subaru WRX because it just wasn’t as WRX as we expected it to be last year, but it boasts a very special attribute in its R309 000 list price. In the UK, that car costs £22500 – just about the figure you get if you divide the rand value by the pound exchange rate.

The STi costs £26 500 in the UK – about R365000.

At that price, this car is the 2009 Cars in Action Performance of the year.

But at the R489 000, Barloworld is ripping us off for STi, it suffers an immediate demotion to a humble third.

At 365 grand, this car would be a brilliant buy – its Tupperware dash, tinny feel and still somewhat ‘70s Datsun finishes would be easily ignored versus that supercar-slaying performance. That sensational 221kW boxer-four driving Subaru’s superb world rally-derived symmetrical all-wheel drive, complete with driver-selectable centre differential and the rest, would make it plain stupid to buy anything that dares call itself a super hatch.

But somehow they have found it necessary to charge an extra hundred and thirty grand for the privilege and quite honestly, that just snuffs out any advantage this car would doubtless have had, had it been priced like it is overseas.

Still, that it placed third despite the need for its purveyors to stash an uncalled for 130 grand every time they sell it, is testament indeed to a brilliant piece of engineering.

But if it carries on with rip-off pricing policies like this, then it’s actually worth your while to take the risk and go for a grey import.

Such a pity – this car really deserved the gong. Subaru SA can only blame itself that STi ended up getting sloppy seconds…

» On page 2: second and first

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