There’s One in Every Family: The Subaru WRX STi

The trope of the Black Sheep is a common one in popular culture, the idiomatic notion of a family member who just doesn’t fit in.  This refusal to conform can be natural or the reflection of an outright rejection of convention; it can also reflect an active rebellion of not only a familiar norm but a societal one.  Inevitably the black sheep is the one you most really want to party with.

Automobile manufacturers inevitably breed their own black sheep.  For Chevy, it might be the raucous Corvette; for Ford, the zany Raptor or hooligan Focus RS.  But the Japanese seem to take the notion to the extreme.  For every bland-as-tapioca Nissan Altima, there’s Godzilla’s own GT-R spewing fire out of its tailpipes.  For every appliance-like Toyota Camry, there’s an FJ Cruiser crawling up the side of boulder mountains.  And for every Honda Accord destined for the parking garage of some mid-level manager’s office, there’s an NSX or Civic Type-R gracing the fever-dreams of the sports car obsessed.

Which brings me to the Subaru WRX STi.  Because for every utilitarian, sensible-shoes Subaru Outback that pulls into the faculty lot of a liberal arts college, there’s a WRX STi pulling up to a skate park, thinking about its plain-vanilla stablemates: “How lame.”

The WRX STi is built in Ōta, Japan, in a plant that once housed the Nakajima Aircraft Company (the ancestor of today’s Fuji Heavy Industries).  In the late-1980’s, Subaru partnered with the British firm Prodrive to begin its factory rally program and began an extraordinary period where its team won the constructor’s and driver’s championship three times each over the next two decades.  The WRC WRX is legendary in rally racing circles as the car Scottish legend Colin McRae drove to the WRC Championships in 1995, his legacy sealed as one of the all-time greats (before he was tragically killed in a helicopter crash in 2007).  Subaru wound down its factory team in 2008, but in car circles the WRX STi is still entirely synonymous with WRC.

The WRC spawned many objects of road-going desire but because we’re Americans and thus rarely get the coolest of cars, the US-market WRX STi only really ever had one competitive evil-twin to terrorize backroads and suburban parking lots alike:  The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.  And when the Evo left the playing field, the WRX STi was left to soldier on alone, its nemesis retired and gone home. 

The car tested here had a base price of $35,192, with an as-tested price of $40,104, and was painted Dark Gray Metallic with a lovely black-and-red interior scheme.  It was loaded up with an electronics package that included a surprisingly muddy Harmon/Kardon stereo (more on that later) and all manner of entry-level electronic gizmos (keyless access, lane departure warning, SirusXM and HD radio, Homelink).  The one box that was happily checked was the STi short-throw shifter.  (Of note on the Monroney sticker: “Full Tank of Gas: INCLD.”  Gee, thanks, Subaru!)

(Thanks to fine folks at Van Subaru for the extended test drive.)

The intercooler clearly won the packaging debate in the Subaru engineering meetings.

The WRX STi is powered by a 2.5-liter, turbocharged and intercooled DOHC flat-4, with aluminum blocks and heads, and port fuel injection.  It makes 305-hp at 6000rpm and 290 lb/ft of torque at 4000rpm.  It’s an old-school turbocharged car, where general lack-of-refinement is overcome by massive amounts of boost, in this case up to 21psi in overboost.  This is turbo-lag like they used to do it: nothing, nothing, nothing, then…everything!  The engine bay itself is largely taken over by a massive intercooler fed by an equally massive hood scoop.  Faux it’s most certainly not, a great scalloped wound on the hood that greedily slurps in atmosphere to feed the intercooler directly underneath.  No fancy cooling plumbing needed; it’s a straight shot from outside air to scoop to intercooler.  Old school.

It’s clearly a powerplant that tries hard, and works hard, and the results are competent and entertaining.  But it’s an old engine, almost ancient compared to its peers, in fact.  Specs like the WRX STi’s were once world-leading, but in the current era direct competitors like the Ford Focus RS make 350-hp (and 350 lb/ft of torque) and the Volkswagen Golf R matches the WRX STi’s numbers with even less displacement (and about 50% more refinement).  The Subbie’s motor feels more than a bit long in the tooth, though it still moves the car with verve.  0-60mph comes by at roughly 4.8 seconds, plenty quick by any standard, though MPG is a little old-school (and not in a good way this time) at 17/23 mpg in city/highway according to the EPA.  Given the exuberance with which this car will likely be driven by its intended audience, I could see a city average of 12/13 mpg being common.

"You call that a scoop?  Now THAT's a scoop."

Power is routed through twin differentials by a snappy 6-speed manual transmission whose clutch-pack feels like it’s about the size of a reasonably-sized orange.  The clutch throw itself is about as long as the space between the wall and the wallpaper; smooth takeoffs require some practice.  The shifter itself has a level of precision that says, “well, yeah buddy, the gears are all in here somewhere and good luck figuring them out.”  Which is to say it’s not exactly Honda-esque in the precision of the shift gate. The shifter itself is a thing of beauty, a perfectly sized golf-ball with fetching red enamel poured onto the top that feels just right in your hand.  Which is a good thing because given the gearing and the relatively high rev-range at which the car really starts to make big power, you’ll be doing a lot of shifting.  The differentials certainly let you know they’re working, with transmission whine drowned out only by the sound of the turbochargers spinning and spooling and dumping excess pressure through the turbo’s wastegate.

A dying breed.

The interior is all glammed-up Imprezza, but the materials by and large are of reasonable quality with the controls in logical spots.  There’s a lot of design elements and gizmos that seem to be trying really hard, but overall, it’s a pleasant place to live.  As you’d expect in a WRC homage car, the parking break is perfectly positioned for you to practice your Scandinavian flick on snowy Home Depot parking lot chicanes.  The seats are a distinct letdown.  While they’re well positioned and adjustable, they’ve got all the cushioning of a mid-century modern fiberglass chair and have basically no lateral bolsters for support.  Given the intended sideways nature of this car, it’s a miss.

On the outside, the styling of the WRX STi is so chunky and clunky as to be irresistibly charming.  Take one garden-variety, humble road car as a base, weld on a bunch of boxy wide fenders, attack the hood with the Jaws of Life to create the aforementioned-scoop, and slap on some fetching anthracite rally wheels.  Voila!

And about that wing…

The WRX STi’s wing is unavoidable, obtrusive, rather obnoxious, and as much a part of the character of the car as the gap between Lauren Hutton’s front teeth.  Essential.  The wing is an entire Aerodrome of faux-downforce.  It’s the backward baseball cap of automobile affectations.  The Mother of All Wings.  Porsche GT3’s and BMW M4 GTS’s blush in humble modesty when a WRX STi arrives on the scene.  You get my point.  (And please no flames from the fanboys.  Yes, it looks rad.  Yes, it’s part of the WRX STi’s charm.  Yes, if you’re above the age of 25 it makes you look like a douche.  No, you’re not Petter Solberg at the Acropolis Rally.)

You'll never shake it no matter how hard you try.

Fire up the engine and the noise that fills the cabin is initially modest and tepid, with little hint of the mechanical fury that’s just under the surface.  Stab the throttle and the mood changes immediately. The exhaust booms and shudders, drowning out the optional Harmon/Kardon stereo at anything about 2500rpm.  The cabin turns into the inner bowl of a timpani drum mid-performance by some exceptionally exuberant percussionist.  Stereo clarity just ain’t gonna happen, nor is conversation at anything close to normal speaking levels.

The WRX STi is not a particularly sophisticated or refined car, but I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way.  It has a distinctly agricultural vibe, with the ever-present sound and feel of metal bits rubbing together in varying states of tension and lubrication.  This car is all about visceral experience.   

But for all the WRX STi’s rough edges, the chassis tuning and exuberant handling is such that all else is forgiven.  This car is about grip, neutral, tunable grip.  The turbo lag of the engine makes progressive power delivery a challenge, and when the big juice kicks in the car tends to understeer, but a little lift of the throttle rotates the rear end in predictable and controllable fashion.  The torque vectoring diffs shift power from wheel to wheel in an altogether noticeable way; you can always feel them doing their thing, and it’s almost a game to see how you can momentarily upset the car just to see how the diffs will react.  Which they do, always at the right time, with just enough stick and grab.  If you get a WRX STi out of shape, you’ve really done something (likely either really good or really bad, but I won’t judge).  The steering is precise, well-weighted, and direct.  And the Brembos at all four corners are fabulous and trick, able to adjust brake pressure at the rear wheels while cornering, a kind of off-throttle torque vectoring without the fancy eDiff of, say, BMW M-cars.

That said, the ride quality is harsh in the extreme.  All that grip is transferred into the cabin with little-to-no delicacy, which is great for a driver playing hooligan but not so much for anyone riding along.  As my wife, she of trenchant powers of observation, said after a short ride: "This seems like one of those cars that might be really fun to drive but isn't any fun at all to ride in."  Nailed it.

I have no doubt that the next generation WRX STi will be a much more modern car.  Subaru is on a massive roll and turns out quality, interesting products in great volumes and with great affection from their loyal owners.  So R&D budget is not a worry.  This current version is a throw-back car in that it’s frankly in need of updating.  But all those rough edges translate to actual personality, and it’s wonderful when a car so honestly and obviously embraces its own anachronisms.  It’s not subtle; it’s not casual.  It’s proudly in-your-face.  For the skate punk in all of us.

“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”-ing on a Ducati Scrambler Full Throttle

Late last Fall, on one of those stunningly, crisp days we live for here in the Midwest, I was blasting down one of my favorite serpentine country roads on the back of a Ducati Panigale R, the Bologna companies thinly-veiled race bike, the red of its fairings the color of impure thoughts, its exhaust note the sound of guilty pleasures.  As I came up over a small ridge, I spied a 35-mph left-hander about a hundred yards down the road.  I’ve ridden this road a lot and know that while it’s intimidating on lean-in, it opens visually almost immediately.  Gravel and grit are rarely an issue due to the road’s camber, and it had rained the night before so the pavement was perfectly clean.  I was confident that as long as I stayed just to the left of a small asphalt repair patch about two-thirds of the way through the corner, there was plenty of runout to really open the throttle.  This is easily a 75-mph corner on a bike with this much grip.  So I braked, went down a gear, shifted my weight, committed to my lean, looked through the corner to pick my line, began to open the throttle, and…

…just then noticed a dead raccoon splayed right on the riding line mid-way through the turn.

The Panigale R is lots of things but what it most certainly isn’t is a bike that tolerates indecision.  It rewards commitment; it is not a fan of half-assed measures.  There was only one thing to do:  I goosed it, shifted my lean even further, tightened the line as much as I could, let the multi-processor traction control system do some serious ciphering, and aimed improbably for the inside of the unfortunate animal’s squished entrails.  My knee came as close to grazing the pavement as is responsible on public roads.  I swear I felt the bike’s rear tire twitch a little on the slick bits as I went zooming by and over. 

All this happened it about three seconds.

The big superbike handled all of this with barely a deep breath, of course, the limits of the Panigale R being so far above my relatively meager own as to always be humbling (I’m certainly no Casey Stoner).  One of the appealing things about riding sportbikes is the way that any road can challenge a rider’s reactions; it’s those electric moments that make motorcycling so invigorating, so engaging.  But you know, sometimes it’s just nice to exhale.  At the risk of bruising (if not losing) my motorcycle man card, high-test sportbikes just aren’t that comfortable to ride, nor are they…here it comes…really that much fun on the street.  Rewarding, yes; exhilarating, certainly.  But fun?  Not so much.

Which brings me to the Ducati Scrambler, a motorcycle with an entirely different design brief from the snarling, hair-raising Panigale lineup.  It’s a motorcycle designed to do nothing so much as induce grins, a low-maintenance and low-effort machine over which to toss a leg and head off down the street or to the coffee shop or across the field or wherever whimsey compels you.  And did I mention it has a high hipster quotient?  More on that later.

(The bike tested here has an as-ridden price of $10,495.  Thanks to Reno’s Powersports in Kansas City, Missouri, for the extended test ride.)

Ducati first released the Scrambler model back in 1962, a 250cc single sold primarily in the American market.  The bike was an immediate hit and over the next number of years grew into a 450cc machine (sold as the Ducati Jupiter) that ultimately included Ducati’s iconic desmodromic cylinder head.  It was Ducati’s first “lifestyle” machine, an adjective I fairly-well loathe but which well describes the notional idea of a motorcycle as cultural touchstone. Of its many key features, it’s excellent frame was so well engineered that it was used, stock, for flat-track racing in the States.  That’s a clear testament to build-quality right there, folks. And then, as these things happen, the original Scrambler was summarily killed off in 1974.

In 2014, attempting to again tap into the generational zeitgeist, Ducati rolled out a reimagined Scrambler at the INTERMOT show in Cologne, Germany.  Rather than being entirely retro, Ducati sought to capture what the Scrambler might have become if the line had never paused.  Now a few model years on, the Scrambler platform has spawned six differentiated variations, including a bobbed-tail café racer model complete with clip-ons and a recently introduced Enduro model, the “Desert Sled,” that’s equipped with rally rubber and greater suspension travel (and which I find the most desirable of the entire line).

Typical artful Ducati packaging shows off the internals with lots of visual interest.

The bike you see here is the “Full Throttle” model, a bike “inspired” by the flat trackers of old (and not to be confused with the Scrambler “Flat Track Pro” model).  It comes equipped with a burbling Termignoni twin-can muffler, Pirelli dual-sport tires mounted on 10-spoke alloy wheels, a truncated seat, a slightly lowered handlebar, and other visual affectations to differentiate it from its cousins.  It’s flat-black paint and yellow highlights inevitably draw comparisons to a bumblebee, but it’s a purposeful look, simple and not overworked, appealing in a minimal and functional way.  It’s an easy bike to look at, the stylishly-packaged mechanicals supported by a simplified version or Ducati’s classic trellis frame.

Controls are simple, legible, and easy to use.  The simple, circular LCD gauge holds up in even bright sunlight, and the round LED headlight manages the delicate balance of being both retro and modern.    

All Scramblers come equipped with the same engine, a slightly detuned version of the one used in Ducati's 796 Monster.  It’s an 803cc, SOHC V-twin (which Ducati calls an L-twin because Italian), which is air- and oil-cooled and delivers 75hp at 8250rpm and 50-lb/ft or torque at 5750rpm.  The engine is as juicy as a ripe peach, the arrival of maximum torque with so many revs left in the range providing immense flexibility and responsiveness, and it’s easy to ride with both verve and predictable control.  And while 75-hp seems paltry in this age of bruising power, in practice it’s more than enough power to motivate a combined bike-and-rider weight of around 600-pounds.

A simple, legible guage is a lovely contrast to today's typically busy baby-dashboards.

The Scrambler stops as well as it goes, it’s semi-knobby Pirelli tires (110/80-18 front, 180/55-17 rear) hauled into check by a capable Brembo, two-channel ABS-equipped system, four-pistons in the front and a single in the rear.  The ABS system is about as simple as they come, either on or off, but provides protection against overbraking on a wide variety of road types (asphalt, grass, gravel, dirt, free-range farm pastures).

Riding the Scrambler is one of motorcycling’s simple little joys.  Straddling the bike is easy for my 6’ frame, neither too tall nor too wide. At slow speeds, it’s 57-inch wheelbase and general compactness make it nimble as a caffeinated house cat, and riding the bike while standing on the foot pegs feels natural and inevitable.  Every roadside field is an invitation to do the silly thing, jump over the berm and tear off across the grass and dirt with a rooster tail of happiness spraying behind you.  It’s a hoot.

Now, back to that hipster thing.  Ducati has gone close to overboard with marketing the Scrambler to a specific demographic, and if the abundance of “pre-customized” models don’t make that point, the vast catalog of factory accessories does.  And not just for the bike; for the rider, there’s an entire virtual department store of clothing (flat-brimmed caps included), helmets, trinkets, gizmos, gadgets, and frippery available to “curate” (to use the verb of the moment) an individual owner’s experience.  But to criticize the Scrambler as a simple lifestyle embellishment misses the point.  It’s a bike that's just about perfect to introduce new riders to motorcycling; never underestimate the power of “cool” to attract interest, and interest often morphs into commitment and long-lasting passion.  The Scrambler is also unintimidating enough for both men and women to enjoy, and effortless enough for experienced riders to jump on and go, leaving their more bruising bikes in the garage, for a jaunt down to the coffee shop or through the trees or on a trail.  If that makes me a hipster rider, then so be it.

The Scrambler exists in a crowded field, with virtually every manufacturer having jumped onto the retro-modern or “neo-classic” trend in some way.  (My current favorites are the Moto Guzzi V7 II Stornello, the Triumph Thruxton, the BMW R nineT URBAN G/S, and the Yamaha XSR900.)  The shear variety of styles and sizes currently available speak to the diversity of the marketplace, and of course the hunt for a truly vintage Honda CB750 occupies the fever-dreams of many an enthusiast.  In my book, all of that is a good thing.

As much as the original Scrambler was in vogue in the Sixties, Ducati has clearly ginned up another winner with their renewed and reimagined lineup.  It’s no surprise that the Scrambler outsells all other Ducati models by a large factor, and in fact the Scrambler became Ducati’s first bike to slip into the global top-10 of bikes sold for the first time ever in 2015; it continues to lead the way in sales for the company today. And before any purists poo-poo the mass-market appeal of the Scrambler as somehow diluting Ducati’s upscale image, I’ll remind them that the massive influx of cash ultimately results in drool-worthy new bikes such as the XDiavel and revised Monster line-up, to say nothing of the exciting new Supersport.

The Ducati Scrambler is everything fun about motorcycles in one small package.  It’s a simple good time.  Well done, Ducati.