Subaru Impreza WRX STi

Very fast, very clever and, thanks to a fat new bodykit, definitely better-looking than the mid-nineties Korean abomination that is the standard Impreza. Good.

• Comfort

  OK, it’s all a bit cheap and plasticky, but – for the performance you get – the STI is easy to live with thanks to infinitely adjustable, er, everything. 2.5-litre boxer engine is gentle enough around town but turns into a turbo-nutter when you thrash it.

  

• Performance

  Yes, quite a lot of this. Sub-five seconds to 100km/h… from a fifty-something grand hot hatch? That’s fast, that is. Clever tech helps you get all the power down on the road… or act like a total drift monkey, if you so desire.

  

• Cool

  Only if you spent a lot of time hawking pirate DVDs in your local Myres car park. Then again, with gold wheels and rally-spec blue paint...

  

• Quality

  Like all Subarus, long-term reliability and quality is superb, but you might not notice on your first contact with the plasticky dashboard.

  

• Handling

  Once again, quite a lot of this. Can be flipped from all-wheel drive maximum attack machine to rear-biased drifter at the flick of a diff switch, and has more than enough talent in either mode to keep most of us happy. A tiny bit more steering feel wouldn’t go amiss, though.

  

• Practicality

  New hatchback shape means more useable bootspace than old saloon versions. But you don’t really care about that, do you?

  

• Running costs

  High insurance group. 10.3L/100km if you drive it gently. Which you won’t. No, the STI won’t be cheap to earn, but in terms of bang-for-yer-buck it’s a veritable bargain. Should hold its used value, too. So long as you don’t spoon it into a ditch.