It’s still car show season, and although Frankfurt is in the past, The Tokyo Motor Show is looming on the horizon. Of interest is a limited run WRX from Subaru called the Subaru Impreza WRX STI Carbon. Clearly, a car slathered with this much of the wonder material is not aimed at moms toting around the kids or the junior level business exec who wants to tell people he’s “made it”. No, that’s not who the WRX is for to begin with, let alone the WRX STI, let alone a show car special like the WRX STI Carbon.
No, the WRX STI Carbon is aimed at the boy racers out there. The Fast-n-Furious set, if that’s not too dated of a reference. Unlike a lot of older car guys, I’ve never had that much of a problem with the import tuner crowd. ‘Hey, at least they’re into cars’, was what I normally thought. I was a little puzzled by someone who’d drop that much money into an Evo or a Civic to go drag racing with it (V8s are a LOT more cost effective). But cars like the WRX STI Carbon I can sort of understand.
The WRX STI Carbon features a carbon fiber roof as it’s biggest difference/selling point over the normal STI. Subaru says that by adding a carbon fiber roof, the WRX has a “significant weight reduction” and a “lower center of gravity.” Although no specs are provided, you don’t have to be Stephan Hawking to know that will turn out to be true. And those things are important, sure, but other than an expensive roof over your head, it would seem that the WRX STI Carbon doesn’t offer that much more over the more run of the mill STIs.
It has the JDM-spec five-speed automatic transmission with the paddle shift option (can we get that over here?) and also those really attractive Recaro chairs (that we can’t get here, sadly). The STI Carbon also has a very nice suede dash as well. So what this breaks down to is a normal STI that has a special roof and designation.
To a certain extent, it sort of like all those “different” cars you can get in the Gran Turismo games for PlayStations. You could get something like a Subaru WRX STI A-Spec Rev. C/2 ZR, which as we all know is a WAY different car from a Subaru WRX STI A-Spec Rev. F/2 ZR. Only it ain’t. You’d look at the specs for the two cars side by side, and the only difference would be the shock settings or the color or something. That’s not much of a difference.
And I guess you could say the same thing concerning the Subaru Impreza WRX STI Carbon. Yes, adding a carbon fiber roof is a pretty nifty, but you could have done more.
Source: Edmunds
Yeah, a lot more. Like including the 6-speed manual gearbox instead of the 5-speed automatic. What were they thinking? This is supposed to attract the import-tuner crowd? And isn’t a manual transmission a few pounds lighter than a slushbox?