1997 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport

Click on any picture for an enlarged version.

It's a "pre-owned" Acadia Green Metallic Impreza wagon in the lively Outback Sport trim. Original life was in Connecticut, and it doesn't seem to have seen much salt or dirt.

It has a 2.2L "boxer" flat-4 (just like a Porsche, or a Cessna) engine (137 hp), full-time all-wheel drive, roof rack, monstrous hood scoop and hood vents, cassette and CD player, cruise control, 4-channel ABS, A/C, and dual air bags. The holes in the hood are for show only, but many Impreza RS owners have opened them up for custom intakes and turbo intercoolers. Recent additions to the car include cruise control, factory fog lamps, leather-wrapped gearshift knob, leather shift boot, and leather-wrapped steering wheel. No sunroof, since there's a luggage rack. No alloy wheels yet, hope to get them by spring.

The car has excessive understeer on snow. It really has to be forced into oversteer mode through a tricky combination of getting enough grip to start the nose turning, followed by plenty of throttle to kick the rear end loose. Otherwise the car will continue to plow forward using grip from the rear wheels. Once the rear end is broken loose, donuts and 4-wheel drifts can be quite fun. This understeer also limits the ability of the car to do 180-spins easily.

Video Clips

Note: you might need to use the right-click, Save As... procedure to save them to your local hard disk first. Then play them using any media player that supports AVI (Indeo 4.4) and MPEG.

Click here and look in the Downloads section to see video of an Impreza doing donuts!

Click here to see videos of other cars do cool tricks

Click here and look in the Gallery section to see more action pictures and video.

How-to Section

In my quest to bring a little refinement to my car, I've documented some of the modifications and improvements I've made.