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Legends of the Cedar Falls: 2 reasonably priced functionality icons on our favorite cost-effective Ohio roads.
You have heard lots more than the years about Subaru’s rally-inspired WRX. And, owing to its longer life span, you have possibly heard even more about Volkswagen’s genre-defining hot hatch, the GTI. It’s now in its 6th generation.
Goodness knows, you have also heard plenty from us about the southern Ohio region of Hocking Hills around Cedar Falls. We’ve been such ardent and vocal fans of the area’s beautifully maintained and lightly traveled roads that even the Hocking Hills 2014 Official Guests Guide magazine devotes a story to what it describes as the “now-legendary” Auto and Driver loop.
So it seemed only proper that we must make one more pilgrimage to our de facto southern base with the new iterations of these 2 storied overall performance automobiles.
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For 2015, Subaru completely reworked the WRX, basing it on the present Impreza sedan. Even though the hatchback version is no longer obtainable, say “WRX” and the image that most likely pops into mind is the notchback version anyway. And of course that imaginary WRX wears some hue of the medium-blue paint that Subaru has employed given that the old Colin McRae 555 World Rally glory days of the mid-’90s. No surprise, then, that our test car wore WR Blue Pearl.
Since it’s a WRX, it is—let’s just come out with it—aesthetically challenged. Subaru teased us with an extremely cool-searching WRX idea vehicle a couple of years ago but then came to its senses and developed a head-scratchingly awkward issue. All is right with the globe.
Bolted into the new, slightly larger physique is a turbocharged and direct-injected 2.-liter boxer-4 (a so-known as FA-series engine) generating 268 horsepower and emitting at least a hint of that common Subaru exhaust-note thrum. It is backed by a 6-speed manual and, of course, comes normal with 4-wheel drive. Our Premium-pack model stickers for $ 29,290.
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It seems the 6th-gen GTI has been with us for a year or a lot more, but it’s only just now going on sale in the U.S. Certainly, it was in our July 2013 situation that this really same new GTI, in Euro spec, dusted the Ford Focus ST in a comparison test in southern France. That explains why the saucy Ford wasn’t invited back for this round. Based on all-new architecture, the 2015 GTI is larger in all dimensions except height, and it carries the newest EA888 turbocharged and dual-injected 2.-liter inline-4 producing 210 horsepower in regular trim and 220 in a Overall performance package–equipped version, such as our test automobile. It also has a substantial bump in peak torque (to 258 pound-feet, up from 207) and now wears appropriate summer time tires that previously were only occasionally offered from the factory. The standard “Clark” plaid fabric seat inserts seem even much more plaid-y, as well. Our low-spec model stickers for $ 28,305 with the Performance package ($ 1495) and Lighting package ($ 995).
As you can almost certainly envision, our days are lengthy and arduous—what with the demands of our clearly properly-deserved celebrity status in these parts—and so we need to periodically retire to the relative anonymity of the South Bloomingville Tavern, a country bar on the loop that is so completely country that its jukebox is stocked with music ranging from country to western (and also Mountain’s seminal hit, “Mississippi Queen”). There, we would deliberate the outcome of this comparison test . . . really, that is not accurate. We’d determined the winner considerably earlier in the day. This gave us ample time to go over far more pressing matters, such as the source of the appeal of Andy Capp’s Hot Fries (offered behind the bar), the veracity of the local legend about the King Toad and his Urine-Filled Mushroom Chalice*, and also how extended it would take me to get punched in the face if I didn’t cease (unintentionally) effecting a cartoonish Southern drawl.
* The Legend of the Type Toad is tiny known, partly simply because we may have produced it up.
Continued…
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2015 Subaru WRX vs. 2015 Volkswagen GTI: Two Reasonably priced Overall performance Icons Compared
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