STing In The Tail: Subaru Legacy STi S402 Short "Autobiography"

The beginning of the 21st Century. Generation Z. The noughties. Whatever you want to call it. The 199X years have ended, and people have just about woken up from their hangovers after Y2K and ready to get to work. And by the looks of it, everything that happened prior to 2010 seemed to be the result of chaotic brilliance and stupidity mixed together to shape contemporary lifestyle as it is today, and this has affected the automotive industry as well. Everyone in the industry were butting heads with each other, figuratively and probably literally in some cases, as they were constantly trying out new things, innovative ideas and hastily presenting it against each other like the world’s biggest d*ck-measuring contest (not just in the automotive industry but in every other industry as well, and perhaps at the local gay bar too).

While the US churned out a trail mix of brilliant and downright shoddy vehicles, and the Europeans were aggressively pushing out new tech after new tech in their cars with much confidence in their engineering, the Japanese resorted to being scrappy; the infamous Economic Recession of the 2000s hit the whole world’s economy hard, especially Asian economies, and sadly, it just made the situation worse for Japanese car manufacturers well known for their performance cars for the masses that the whole world quickly came to love them for following the late 80s.

Thankfully, the Japanese still had some fight left in them, so before their spark should burn out, their car makers’ performance oriented engineers went all out for the small but devoted niche of enthusiasts by spreading their crazy genius into almost every car their more tame relatives made, and one particular, maverick stand-out of the group would be Subaru; to most’s surprise, the popular Impreza was now not the only STi marked sedans in town.

Nobody really expected Subaru to give the typically mundane Legacy a “STi” makeover, but surprise, surprise! They did it anyway.

Based on the “sportiest” trim you can get for the midsize sedan, the 2.0GT spec.B, the eggheads at STi consider it highly insufficient, and decides to give it a touch of wildfire by pitching in the coveted Subaru-derived twin-scroll 2.5L flat-6 engine that punched in a hearty 281 HP and 392 Nm of torque that is promoted by the addition of VVT and a souped up ECU. Other helpful upgrades given were the Brembo brake calipers based off its Impreza WRX STi cousin along with the quality 18” BBS wheels. It seems like having a star spangled banner to represent yourself always gives you a little bit of crazy.

For wagon lovers, it existed in a wagon body as well.

In case that wasn’t enough to convince you, STi suited these elusive beasts as manual-exclusive vehicles, which is already a massive “want” point in itself. Going back to the “elusive” part of the Legacy STi, only 402 of these were ever made during 2005, and all of them in Japan, so to find one of these would be in itself an eventful story that you could tell your grandkids. If that isn’t how you create a Legacy, then I don’t know what. +

chirp chirp

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪