1997 Subaru Impreza GL 2000 AWD from Brazil - Comments

Not to say just nothing I'll mention that there are some noises inside the car.

PROS:

For who can only dream with the WRX, this is a great car.

Very fun to drive it over twisty roads, specially those gravel, mud and sand ones. It feels like you're on a WRC event. The tires, that are 185/70 and it's in superb suspension are what gives the car its great handling over these trick type of roads. In my country, the city roads are not so smooth as they should be, so the car is just perfect.

The AWD traction is so exciting, and it gives you so much confidence.

I've never had any mechanical-technical problem with the car.

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CONS:

You can actually see the Fuel Indicator Needle dropping. With 50l I can drive for 350-400km.

The non-turbo charged version of the engine is not that powerful (125hp) and the car is some kind of heavy, that's what explain its slow acceleration (0-100km/h in 11s).

I believe that most noises there exists inside the car are a direct result of its not-so-rigid chassis.

I found your information helpful because I am thinking of buying a naturally-aspirated Impreza (yeah, you guessed it: WRX costs too steep for me!).

A few years back, I used to own a 1992 Mitsubishi Lancer glxi 4wd - it had only 95bhp, but it had superb handling (my 1st experience of 4WD and was a riot to drive), and having owned several 2WD european hatchbacks since then, I miss the handling style of such a car.

I live in England, so 4WD isn't as important, but having said that, English road surfaces have quite a bad reputation when compared to France, Germany etc.

Also, I occasionally need to drive down bumpy dirt tracks/fields, but think a large SUV would be overkill.

I've always admired subarus & am a WRC fan. I will maybe get a fairly old Impreza soon, or I could wait quite a lot longer and save money to get the current generation naturally-aspirated Impreza 2.0R with (I think) 158bhp, which is a good compromise with performance/practicality.

I'd really appreciate any information/opinions anyone has on the Impreza 2.0 R saloon.