PLENTY OF POWER — AND IT'S PRACTICAL, TOO
Larry Lalonde is happily married to his wife, Felicia, but he's also married to his manual transmission vehicles. Because the Calgarian likes to row his own gears, Lalonde was eager to put the 2022 Subaru WRX, with the close-ratio, six-speed standard gearbox, through its paces.
“I've owned manual-shift vehicles my entire time driving,” Lalonde says. “I enjoy shifting for myself and have always had one in the household vehicle lineup to keep proficient driving one.”
Just on the other side of 50, he isn't sure he's Subaru's target market for the sporty WRX. He thinks the car appeals to a younger demographic looking for a performance-oriented, all-wheel drive four-door sedan that's fun yet practical.
Lalonde spent time in the well-equipped '22 WRX Sporttech, finished in Magnetite Grey Metallic, and the car would have cost less than $42,000 to drive off the lot. Available in five trims, a base model WRX is just over $33,000 (all plus taxes, of course).
Initially based on the Subaru Impreza platform, the WRX, which stands for World Rally experimental, was launched first in Japan in 1992. With rally racing success in its DNA, the WRX was a performance car other world markets got to enjoy before it arrived in North America in 2002.
Now in its fifth generation, the '22 WRX is all-new, and is powered by an enhanced 2.4-litre, 271-horsepower, turbocharged horizontally opposed four-cylinder boxer engine. Also new is the availability of an automatic Subaru Performance Transmission, or SPT. The exterior has been redesigned, and that includes the addition of quite a bit of plastic cladding to many areas of the car. A functional hood scoop directs air where it's needed, and the rear spoiler is now a subtle lip on the trunk lid.
“I like the real hood scoop for the turbo, and I prefer the low-profile spoiler lip on the back compared to the gaudy ones on some of the previous editions of this car,” Lalonde says.
“The metallic dark grey is quite nice, but darker than I was expecting. But a good thing about this colour is that it helps to blend the dimpled plastic cladding that surrounds the wheel wells, running boards and front and rear end.”
While it might be a bit distracting, Lalonde is not opposed to the cladding. For a number of years, the family owned a cladding-laden Volvo XC70 “and we drove it everywhere in all kinds of conditions and the cladding lasted forever. So personally, I think it's fine.”
Lalonde says the WRX garnered a lot of attention. With the car parked in front of his house, he noticed people pausing to inspect it, or walking across the street to look at it, “and another time when someone took out their phone to take some pictures of it.”
Opening the door and settling into the cockpit, Lalonde said driver comfort in the eight-way, power-adjustable sport bucket seat instantly felt good. It was simple and intuitive to set up, and the telescoping steering wheel was easy to position.
“The throttle, brake, clutch and dead pedal are nicely positioned, and look good, too,” he says.
After starting the 2.4-litre engine, Lalonde says the gauges and centre multimedia console came to life, and he liked “that there is both analog instrument gauges as well as a digital one.”
He says the clutch offered good feel and was neither too soft nor too heavy.
“The friction or engagement point is easy to identify, and the car didn't require you to be too heavy on the throttle to get going which was nice for a sporty car like the WRX,” he says. “The shifter throw is nice and tight, and I drove it both economically and a little bit harder.”
An aspect of the WRX Lalonde thoroughly appreciated was the visibility. Sightlines out all windows and in the power-adjustable side mirrors was exceptional, and he says the blind-spot assist system never really told him about anything he wasn't already aware of.
To test the WRX'S highway manners, Lalonde and Felicia loaded up their two children, daughter Emelia and son Alexander, and headed west toward Elbow Falls in Kananaskis Country.
“I decided to take the car to Powderface Trail,” Lalonde says, “to see how it handles on a twisty, hilly and rolling gravel road.”
Powderface Trail is a 34-kilometre road that connects Highway 68 to Highway 66 in the Rocky Mountains. There's a sign at the start that says, “Road not recommended for travel. Use at your own risk.”
“It is one of Canada's highest roads topping out at 6,082-feet and requires serious respect,” Lalonde says. “So, where better than that to take a rally machine like the 2022 WRX? The WRX shone here.
“On power going uphill it was stellar. Where the gravel was loose and the car wanted to drift from being off the throttle, the AWD and Active Torque Vectoring predictably hooked the car back up when you went back on throttle to apply power. The car instilled a lot of confidence on this road.”
The WRX was practical, too. Lalonde loaded Alexander's hockey bag in the trunk, which was an easy proposition thanks to a convenient lift-over height. He believes not everybody needs a crossover and suggests there's still room in the marketplace for a sedan, especially one that performs as well as the WRX.
While he found the suspension on the almost-too-stiff side at speeds below 50 km/h, he did say the WRX is a driver's car. He managed to see an average 10.6 L/100 km, something he thought somewhat thirsty, but not unexpected with the turbo power plant.
“The power band on the engine and manual transmission is impressive,” he says. “The AWD is excellent and will likely perform as well on icy roads as it does on loose gravel ones.
“You don't need to red line this car to get the power out of it that you want for daily driving.”
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