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)