THE NEW SUBARU IMPREZA WRX STI R205 (Road Sport 205) is expected to con­tinue the tra­di­tions of lim­ited edi­tion high per­for­mance set by the ultra-​​rare R203 and R204 editions.

The New Sub­aru Impreza WRX STI R205…limited to 400 only

Splat­tered with STi badg­ing and high qual­ity touches thtough­out, the new R205 comes with a brand new exclu­sive tur­bocharger, sports exhaust sys­tem, STi tuned dampers and coil springs, 18″ alu­minium wheels,  exclu­sive grille and quar­ter panel upgrades, and retuned ECU.

The engine upgrades take the R205’s power to a very strong 325HP and 317.9 lb-​​ft of torque, with Brembo 6-​​pot breaks up front and 4-​​pot in the rear bring­ing the car to a quick, firm stop.

But don’t get to excited, avail­abil­ity for the R205 is cur­rently lim­ited 400 units in the JDM (that means Japan) only, and like pre­vi­ous incar­naitons, is not expected to land in the Euro­pean, US or Aus­tralian mar­kets (out­side of grey imports).

[Ed: Your move, Mitsubishi.]

Sub­aru Impreza WRX STi R205

 

Sub­aru has part­nered with out­door gear com­pany Colum­bia to pro­duce the Sub­aru Forester X Colum­bia lim­ited edition.

Start­ing at $33, 990, the Colum­bia gains a few upgrades over the stan­dard Forester, includ­ing 16″ alloy wheels, fog lights, roof cross bars, rear step panel, cargo tray and a $500 voucher for Colum­bia mer­chan­dise. Notably the 2010 Colum­bia is miss­ing a sun­roof and heated seats which were present on the 2007 incarnation.

Ini­tially 1050 Columbia’s will be avail­able from today.

PRESS RELEASE:

01 Jan 2010
Spe­cial edi­tion Forester X Columbia

Sub­aru has part­nered with global sports­wear com­pany, Colum­bia, to pro­duce a new spe­cial edi­tion – the Forester X Columbia.

Australia’s best sell­ing SUV, the Forester, adds an exten­sive list of extras and is priced from just $33,990 driveaway.

Forester X Colum­bia is ready for week­end adven­tures adding 16-​​inch alloy wheels, fog lights, roof cross bars, cargo tray and rear step panel.

Spe­cial edi­tion badg­ing is also added and cus­tomers receive a $500 voucher to spend on Colum­bia merchandise.

Avail­able in both man­ual and auto­matic trans­mis­sions, this spe­cial edi­tion is avail­able in all Forester colours.

Only 1050 are avail­able, and are priced at $33,990 dri­ve­away for the man­ual and $35,990 for the automatic.

Stan­dard Forester fea­tures include:

• ABS brakes with EBD
• Airbags — dual front, side and curtain
• Air-​​conditioning
• All-​​Wheel Drive
• AM/​FM radio/​CD player
• Data­Dot secu­rity system
• Elec­tronic throt­tle con­trol system
• Head­lights auto off
• Hill holder (man­ual only)
• Immo­biliser secu­rity system
• Power steer­ing, mir­rors and windows
• Three year/​unlimited kilo­me­tre warranty

Nick Senior, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Sub­aru Aus­tralia, said: “Forester is the highest-​​selling SUV in the coun­try and is per­fectly suited to the Aus­tralian lifestyle.

“It’s a nat­ural fit to part­ner with Colum­bia and we think this spe­cial edi­tion offers cus­tomers a fan­tas­tic recre­ational pack­age at a very com­pet­i­tive price.”

The Forester X Colum­bia is on sale from 4 Jan­u­ary 2010.

About Sub­aru

Every Sub­aru sold in Aus­tralia fea­tures Sym­met­ri­cal All-​​Wheel Drive and a hor­i­zon­tally opposed boxer engine, stan­dard Vehi­cle Dynam­ics Con­trol elec­tronic sta­bil­ity pro­gram, and a five-​​star rat­ing for occu­pant safety from the inde­pen­dent Aus­tralasian New Car Assess­ment Pro­gram (ANCAP). The result – dri­ving confidence.

Short moments after the bell rang for 2010, Travis Pas­trana sent his Sub­aru Impreza sail­ing 269 feet through the air, dec­i­mat­ing the pre­vi­ous record of 171 feet by Ken Block.

[Source: Leap Year! — Action Sports — ESPN]

The entire event was under­taken as part of Travis’s Red Bull No Lim­its group in front of a live TV audi­ence. Check it out via Youtube below

Sub­aru deal­ers across the coun­try are now tak­ing orders for a nat­u­rally aspi­rated 4-​​door Impreza.

The AWD sedan comes a year after the new hatch­back Impreza that debuted, and shares the same 2620mm wheel­base and price range for all three vari­ants; R, RX, and RS. How­ever the sedan is 165mm longer than the hatch in total, and comes with a slightly larger boot (45mm longer). The car also rides 35mm higher than the pre­vi­ous Impreza sedan, and pro­vides a split-​​folding rear seat to improve capacity.

The sedan’s engine remains unchanged from the hatch vari­ant, a 110KW(@6400RPM)/196NM(@3200RPM) two litre DOHC Boxer four cylin­der petrol engine mated to either a 5 speed man­ual trans­mis­sion or 4 speed SportsShift auto­matic. Sub­aru claims a com­bined fuel econ­omy of 8.9L/100km for the man­ual vari­ants and 8.8L/100km for auto­matic vari­ants on stan­dard (91RON) unleaded fuel.

The Impreza is avail­able with dual front and side airbags, cur­tain airbags, ABS with elec­tronic brake-​​force dis­tri­b­u­tion (EBD), brake assist, VDC sta­bil­ity con­trol, active front head-​​rests, hill-​​start assist for man­ual cars, air con­di­tion­ing and a stan­dard 4 speaker CD audio. All mod­els are 5-​​star ANCAP rated.

Pur­chas­ing the RX ver­sion adds 16″ alloy wheels, a 6-​​stacker, 10 speaker CD audio sys­tem, auto­matic cli­mate con­trol, a leather-​​rim steer­ing wheel with audio con­trols and leather gearshift and optional sunroof.

The RS upgrades the alloys to 17″, adds a bodykit with rear dif­fuser and spoiler, mesh grille, sports seats, rear pri­vacy glass and an upgraded trim. The RS may also be optioned with a leather trim and sun­roof package.

The WRX ver­sion of the Sedan, pack­ing Subaru’s fabled 169KW/​320NM 2.5L tur­bocharged 4-​​cylinder is expected in December.

Pric­ing is as follows:

• Impreza R $24,490 (man­ual) $26,490 (auto)
• Impreza RX $26,490 (man­ual) $28,490 (auto)
• Impreza RS $29,490 (man­ual) $31,490 (auto)

 

Rumors have been fly­ing about a new per­for­mance ori­ented Toy­ota sports car hit­ting the per­for­mance scene for a con­sid­er­able time now, from an AE86 revival to a new Supra, but per­haps no one expected news that these shad­owy rumors would coa­lesce into the for­got­ten Cel­ica GT-​​4.

The last model Cel­ica. Will we see styling cues from this?

But per­haps even more sur­pris­ing is the rumor that the car will be engi­neered to a large degree by Sub­aru. In Novem­ber Toy­ota con­firmed rumours of a new sports car and Cel­ica replace­ment, with the sports car being a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sub­aru and Toy­ota, and now it seems the car is the per­for­mance model of the Cel­ica line. How­ever, the new car will not come with a Toy­ota bred turbo four in the tra­di­tion of the (some­what) under­pow­ered motor of the old model — instead it’s going to be car­ry­ing a Sub­aru Boxer turbo, most recently seen in the all grown up Sub­aru Impreza WRX STi.

The new model is said to come in two dis­tinct per­for­mance vari­ants. First, the base ‘GT’, pack­ing a front engined, RWD dri­ve­train and nat­u­rally aspi­rated 2.0L 4 cylin­der Boxer (most likely from the Impreza RX), designed to slide in under the $20,000 bracket. Sec­ondly the full fat GT-​​4, which car­ries the new JDM STi’s 224KW (300HP) Boxer turbo and AWD sys­tem stan­dard, with Motor Trend claim­ing the engine will be closer to the cars fire­wall in order to facil­i­tate the instal­la­tion of in-​​wheel elec­tric motors to help with traction.

The GT and GT-​​4 will be built in in coupe and three-​​door hatch vari­ants, but no five door vari­ants because of Toy­ota and Sub­aru not want­ing to com­pete in the Impreza’s arena, which is rather tongue in cheek con­sid­er­ing this new car will inevitably be seen as either a Impreza in Toy­ota cloth­ing, or as direct com­pe­ti­tion by tuners. This begs the ques­tion then; will the new GT-​​4 be a real con­tender in the hotly con­tested price for per­for­mance bracket? Will the Toy­ota be lighter, faster, and more capa­ble than the new STi? Would Sub­aru shoot them­selves in the foot, and does it mat­ter con­sid­er­ing Toyota’s widen­ing stake in Sub­aru?

Does this mean Sub­aru will become more and more the per­for­mance arm of Toy­ota? Time will tell, but we cer­tainly hope not.