I never thought I’d one day have so little to enthuse over a Subaru Impreza WRX. The WRX acronym coined by Subaru has somehow lost its true World Rally Cross Country connotation — the WRX has metamorphosed into a mild Mr, Mrs and Ms Everyday car.

Gone is that over-the-counter rally car feel aficionados craved for and got, stuff the Subaru name was founded on — like my evergreen ’98 Impreza GT Wagon. But somehow I’d felt something was afoot from the time I first saw the 6500rpm red-marked limit on the rev-counter or the even more puzzling 210km/h governed top speed limit. What’s even more disturbing is the WRX’s power to weight ratio is almost the same as that of a ’98 GT.

Yes it may still be a refined piece of engineering, but it’s forgotten where it comes from. What’s more we chose it as one of our top PCOTY 12 finalists due to its specific outputs and were sure it had the goods to impress. After all, it’s a Subaru Impreza WRX. But we were wrong — as its Mazda3 MPS rival had proven by turning our negative perception of it to positive ones, the WRX went the other way.

What was puzzling was that though its test figures on the road were respectable, its exit speed at the end of the standing kilometre was what initially indicated that all was not well. In fact it was on the track that the truth was finally out by being slower than any of its natural rivals here – and in some cases considerably so.

Whereas the Mazda3 MPS proved it could handle the vagaries of a high-speed track, the WRX did not come up to scratch. Why it should be so with similar specific outputs to its rivals is something of a mystery.

Though it did suffer a little with understeer through high-speed corners scrubbing some speed off, braking was of the highest order. The latter in part was thanks to improvements in hydraulic pressure and other improvements to the system.

Where Subaru is going with this about-turn in philosophy has many stalwarts confused. I for one, believe the hugely untapped mass-market is the one aim. But fret not, the true Subaru heart still beats, albeit somewhere else. The soon to arrive STi will certainly rescue those floundering diehard Scooby lovers from the lows of conformity.

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