When Subaru went hatch-only on the previous-generation STI, the company explained that the body style handled better, which had something to do with center of gravity, weight distribution, polar moments of inertia, and other such things. Perfectly rational explanations, and completely lost on the fans. You wanted a sedan with a wing big enough to pick up premium movie channels in Tokyo, and you got it. And it performs even better than the last STI hatch we tested.
Not that it’s a completely fair comparison. Subaru didn’t just build a sedan version of the STI for 2011 and call it a day. As long as it was building a new model, Subaru let its engineers loose on the suspension to see if they couldn’t make up for that non-ideal body. We saw the first hints of that improvement in the 2010 Subaru WRX STI Special Edition we tested back in May, with its stiffer suspension lifted from the JDM-only Spec C model. Subaru hung onto those parts for the 2011 car, and even gave them another going-over.
A lower ride height, even stiffer stabilizer bars on top of the already-stiffened springs, and new Heim joints on the front suspension conspire to turn out the best figure-eight performance of any factory-spec STI we’ve ever tested, the Special Edition included. Though the new sedan gave up a small amount of lateral grip (0.93 g average on the skid pad versus an all-time best of 0.95 g average for the 2008 model), it made big strides where it counted, on the figure eight. By testing transitions as well as pure lateral grip, the figure eight gives us a better impression of real-world handling, which the new STI has in spades. Completing the circuit in just 25.5 seconds at 0.73 g average, it’s quicker and stickier than both the last-generation STI and the STI Special Edition, which clocked in at 25.7 seconds at 0.71 g average. A quick look at our test data dating back to the original STI reveals that the only way you’re going to do better is with aftermarket parts.
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