Impreza WRX? Re: Maybe a New //M3 & Thinking of buying an E36 328is

["Mark Cecil" <mjcecil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> P.S. Yesterday I was driving a bone-stock '03 Impreza WRX and was
> not overly impressed with it, which totally enraged the person in
> posession of the car (my brother).
...SNIP...
> I told him that's not what I expected out of a $40k car (Canadian $).

I actually was talking to a coworker about the Subaru last week.  I told him
that, while I am very impressed with the WRX and it's more serious brother,
the WRX STi, What you wind up with at the end of the day was a
$30,000 (US) car with a hotshit drivetrain but $15,000 fit, finish, and
appointments.  If you're going to graduate to the $30,000 range, it seems
natural to get a bit "more" for your cash than you would if you'd bought in
the teens.  But, with the limited time I've had to look at the car, mostly,
I see the same inexpensive trim items and features that I see in the rest of
the Subaru line (not "cheap", per se, but inexpensive), with the exception
of a couple of go-fast-looking extras.  It just doesn't "feel" $30K.  I
suspect the actual ride is as out-of-place, financially speaking, but that
remains to be seen.

Now, my shock tower incident aside, I can say that, for the $40,000 I spent
on my M3 in '99, I got $40,000 worth of everything.  The fit and finish is
spectacular, and I'll guarantee that at nearly 100,000 miles (yes, I have
well into the nineties on a '99 M3. I commute my ass off.), My car is closer
to being "new" inside and out than the Subaru  (or, for that matter, the '94
Honda Accord -a fabulous car for the money- that I replaced when I bought
the M3) is likely to be after cranking out 50K.  And, in the end, the car
still feels and (more importantly) *drives* like $40,000.

I'd really love to get my mitts on a WRX for an (unsupervised) afternoon,
but I really don't think it'll hold a candle to my baby in the fun and
confidence department.

mjc
'99 ///M3


    -= Mark Justin Cecil == New Orleans, LA == mjcecil@domain.elided =-
                    -= http://noml.dyndns.org/mark.html =-
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