There are needs and there are wants. I don’t need a Subaru WRX, but I sure want one. I had my Outback in for service the other day, and the Subie dealer had a bright tangerine WRX on the showroom floor (Subie calls the color Solar Orange Pearl). Those cars are fast and appealing and I was all over it. I don’t need another car. But I sure want the WRX you see above. I’d name it Il Tangerino.
Susie and I bought a new WRX in 2006 and it was one of the best and most fun cars we ever owned. We did a lot of great trips in that car. It had an automatic transmission (unusual for the WRX) and it was just a hoot to drive. It felt like a supercharged go kart, which in a way it sort of was. Turbocharged, anyway. It would go like a bat out of hell and one time when passing a long string of cars heading north on the 395, I looked down and saw I was doing a cool 140 mph. It was effortless. Like I said, these cars are fast.
I like the orange color. I had an orange Subie CrossTrek and my friends teased me about its bright orange paint. Laugh all you want. The CrossTrek was a good looking car and it was easy to find in a parking lot.
I first drove a WRX when good buddy Tom tossed me the keys to his WRX when we were hanging around Bob Brown’s BMW dealership. Marty and I took it out for a spin, it was fast, and that ride was all it took. I bought the blue one you see above a short while later.
Most WRX Subies have manual transmissions. Those are okay, but I’m a bit more mature now and I prefer an automatic. Sit in California traffic a while and you will, too.
I asked the sales guy at the Subie dealership what this one would go for and after the standard line of dealer crap (including the when are you going to buy, how much are you willing to offer, etc….I do love dealers and their sales people), he finally showed me their invoice. The bottom line is that this Subie would go for something slightly north of $32,000, not counting taxes and other fees.
My first thought was that $32K is not a bad price for a car like this (I recently read in the Wall Street Journal that the average price for a new GM car is right at $50K today). The Subie you see here has a 2.4-liter engine and a turbocharger. You’re supposed to run premium fuel and here in the Peoples Republik premium is running north of $5 per gallon. so that’s probably a deal killer. But like I said at the start of this blog, there’s needs and there’s wants. I don’t need a new WRX, but I sure want this one. If enough of our readers click on the popup ads…who knows?
Never miss an ExNotes blog: