1996 saw the rise of the Impreza from odd ball Japanese 4 wheel drive 2 litre with turbo to cult status almost over night. The little know Impreza models success was due to one man, Scotlands Colin McRae driving a Group A rally car to victory in the RAC Rally and with it a championship at the end of 1995. Subaru, being low down in the pecking order for import restrictions suddenly found themselves with growing waiting lists for a car which in 1994 and 1995 could be driven out of the show room the next day and with a discount!

Standard road going Impreza 2000 Turbo AWD Saloon 1996 model

The 1996 Impreza Turbo 2000 AWD has the following spec...

Horizontally opposed (i.e. boxer), liquid cooled, 4 cylinder, 4 stroke
16 valve with turbo and intercooler.
Compression ratio 8.0
Max turbo pressure 80,000Pa (11.9psi)
Max power 208bhp@6000rpm
Max torque 201lbs ft/rpm@4800rpm
Max speed 142mph
Acceleration 0-62mph 6.6sec
Tyres 205/55VR15
1996 Price on the road around 19000UKP (A/C add 1500UKP)

As tested above most magazines seem to better the acceleration figures.

Typical test results from Performance Car....

0-60mph 5.9s
1/4mile 14.5s
50-70mph 11.1s
mpg 17.1 heavy/28.7 touring

I've personally test driven this version and it's a great car. The handling gives a lot of feed back to the driver and it results in confidence and enjoyment allowing you to exploit the power available. Entering sharp bends or roundabouts there is very little roll of the chassis and the car must benefit with the boxer engine due to it's lower centre of gravity. Whether this is really true can be debated as the exhausts have to exit under the engine, raising it slightly whilst there is so much ancillary equipment in the engine bay that I would hate to drop a bolt because it would not come out down below for probably the next 1000 miles!

The interior though I feel leaves a lot to be desired in comparison to the competition and is certainly down market. The seats make no pretention to giving any real side support for instance and are basic cloth trim. The dash board is also not much to look at, being more in line with a the base entry model of other manufacturers. Very popular on this model therefore is the Prodrive interior upgrade of Recaro seats and trim. A cheaper alternative is to upgrade the seating with those from a later model.

Standard road going Impreza 2000 Turbo AWD Saloon 1996 model

As mentioned above, the Impreza had major revisions to both external and internal features in 1997. So on to 1997 and the MY97.

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