1999 Subaru Impreza STi Version 5 review from Australia and New Zealand

Air flow meter replaced as K&N filter damaged it. This car requires a standard air-filter.

This has to be the quickest most exciting car I have owned. Passing other traffic was safe and easy.

It was reliable and comfortable.

The only real downsides were:

Boot space or lack thereof.

Lack of lap/sash rear center seat-belts, at a time when other Subaru models of the same year had them.

The cars inability in Snow. Besides being 4wd, all the car's wheels just spun (in 2nd gear) in one of Ruapehu's car-parks. I got out with help from by-standers pushing the car. The 4wd system is biased towards performance grip and handling, not low down traction as needed there.

Even though the car was NZ new, it's trade in value suffered as imports could be bought (by Subaru franchise dealerships) for less, and this major dealership does not differentiate between NZ new/imports at trade in time, though it does place a premium on second hand NZ new cars when they retail them.