Four Imprezas, a total of 1,184bhp and a mile-long strip of tarmac... the battle of the hardcore Subaru special editions is on!

A manic chorus of turbo engines is followed by a screech from the tyres as our competitors catapult off the line. And with 119bhp more than the next most powerful car here, the new Cosworth-tuned Impreza this should find this a walk in the park – especially given that its rivals today are 10 years older.
 
But half a mile in, the Cossie is lagging behind in third place, given the jump by the lighter Mk1 cars. The newcomer looks beaten. Then, as the speedo creeps past 120mph, the leaders almost appear to brake and the silver car storms home to claim victory.

This is the fastest, most hardcore Impreza ever. Called the Cosworth Impreza STi CS400, it’s the first road car developed by the legendary engine tuner since the Ford Escort version ceased production in 1996. It’s been worth the wait.

We drove a prototype of this car back in issue 1,121, but this is the full production version, and one of only 75 examples that will ever be built – exclusively for the UK market. We were hoping to get behind the wheel a number of weeks ago, but we’ve been made to wait while Cosworth ironed out a number of niggling faults.

And it’s a good thing the car is fighting fit, because this is no easy first assignment. We’ve brought it head-to-head with a trio of legendary Impreza special editions from the past – and the RB5, P1 and 22B are out to prove that simply being the latest doesn’t mean you’re the best.

The CS400’s spec makes for impressive reading. New pistons, forged con-rods and a high-pressure oil pump, plus an ECU remap and a larger turbo, hike the 2.5-litre four-cylinder boxer engine to 395bhp. That’s 33 per cent more than in a standard STi. The result is a claimed 0-62mph time of 3.7 seconds and a top speed limited to 155mph.

To handle the extra power, the six-speed manual gearbox gets carbon syncromesh on the first three ratios and a unique free-flowing exhaust system, featuring wider pipes for a throaty sound. Cosworth hasn’t stopped there. Eibach springs and Bilstein dampers have been added, plus the front end is lowered by 15mm and the track widened by 24mm. Larger-diameter AP Racing front brake discs make sure it stops as well as it goes.

To mark it out from regular Impreza STis, there is a number of styling additions, including lightweight 18-inch wheels, a roof spoiler and revised upper and lower mesh grilles. Inside, the front seats, steering wheel and rear bench are re-trimmed in Cosworth-branded black leather – but it’s not enough to disguise the fact that the cabin still feels cheap for a £50,000 car.

On the move, this is one seriously fast hatchback. Find somewhere with enough space to deploy the full 395bhp, and get ready for a shock. Push the throttle to the floor and a snarling crescendo from the quad exhausts is accompanied by a jet-like whoosh as the intake manifold hoovers up the air in front of the car and rockets you towards the horizon. Step off the throttle and the turbo’s wastegate dumps the unwanted boost with another deafening hiss. If it’s drama you’re looking for, this car’s got it.

The ride is firm, as we’ve come to expect from the Subaru, but the trade-off is an insatiable appetite for corners – something it shares with the three classics here today. Switch the throttle map to Sport Sharp and turn into a corner carrying as much speed as you like, and you feel the electronics shuffle the drive to the wheels with the most grip. Then, simply jump back on the throttle to fire the car onwards.
 
Disappointingly, though, there’s a softness to the CS400. Squeeze the throttle and it’s a couple of seconds before the turbo reacts. The manual box is rubbery and vague, while the overly light steering gives no feedback from the front tyres.

Driving the other three classics back-to-back with the newcomer is a revealing exercise. There are stark similarities between all four cars – the delayed throttle response, light steering and the fact that they all get better the harder they are driven. But even though our three special editions all appeared on the UK market between 1999 and 2000, they each have distinct characteristics.

The 22B is as close to a WRC car for the road you can get, while the P1 strikes the best balance between raw performance and usability. The RB5 is the most docile of the three, but can still be driven at shocking speed. And that’s our only gripe with the new Cosworth. While it’s impressive in everything it does, and a huge amount of fun to throw around when you have the space to find its limits, it’s not as involving to drive as any of the other three – and let’s not forget its near-£50,000 price tag.

It’s a spectacular return to the road car arena for Cosworth, but the old Imprezas are still showing the newcomer the way.

Impreza P1
Widely regarded as the best roadgoing Impreza, the P1 arrived in 2000, producing 276bhp from its 2.0-litre flat-four engine. Rally specialist Prodrive tuned the chassis, and a cult classic was born. If you’re lucky, you can pick up one of the 1,000 P1s for around £10,000.

Impreza 22B
The ultimate collector’s Impreza, with only 16 ever making it to the UK. The name comes from its engine, increased from 2.0 to 2.2 litres and producing a claimed 276bhp. It was priced at £39,950 when at launch in 1999; a well looked after example can still fetch up to £25,000 today.

Impreza RB5
Built to mark the return of Richard Burns to the Subaru World Rally Team in car number 5, the RB5 launched in 1999 and only 444 cars ever left the factory. Each had a performance pack that boosted power to 237bhp; 0-60mph took five seconds and top speed was 143mph.

When it comes to supercars, America and Europe have been conducting a one-way relationship over the years. While the likes of Porsche, Ferrari and Maserati have done good business in the States, their US counterparts have sold in tiny numbers to a loyal but dwindling band of enthusiasts on this side of the Atlantic.

Yet are we missing a trick? Has our love of European brands clouded our judgement about what makes a great supercar? The ZR1 is out to prove that the likes of Audi and Aston still have a lot to learn. It is the most powerful production Corvette ever made. Boasting a 638bhp supercharged V8, it’s just hit the UK with the biggest price tag ever attached to a ’Vette – a cool £106,605.

In terms of design, the car ticks all the supercar boxes. Gloriously retro, it features every trademark design touch: from the sunken quad tail-lamps to the Coke-bottle waistline, it manages to be old-fashioned and contemporary at the same time.
Put simply, you could never confuse the Corvette with anything else on the road.

Sadly, the Eighties’ timewarp approach isn’t quite so successful on the inside. While the driving position is decent enough and Corvette has tried hard to improve things with some snazzy trim, its two rivals are in a different league – both for their material quality and their high-end ambience.

But although the interior design is off the pace, that’s not a criticism you can level at the Corvette’s engine. One of the most potent motors on the market, this V8 is an incredible performer. It sends an avalanche of raw power to the back wheels with the merest flex of your right ankle. And while

it’s far from being the most refined or sophisticated unit ever made, it catapults the ZR1 from 0-60mph in only 4.5 seconds, and on to 100mph in 8.4 seconds.

To cope with all that firepower, Corvette has upgraded the chassis with Magnetic Ride Control that allows drivers to switch between Sport and Tour settings. Carbon ceramic brakes and Michelin run-flat tyres wrapped around 19-inch front and 20-inch rear wheels complete the dynamic package.

These enhancements go a long way to making the ZR1 feel more surefooted and focused than lesser Corvettes, but in this test it comes up short. Sport mode does tighten up the car’s reactions, yet it seems much less composed than its rivals, especially when the blower kicks in and threatens to snap the car in two. Traction, unsurprisingly, is the ’Vette’s biggest weakness. Combine a greasy roundabout with sledgehammer power delivery and darty steering, and you need the reactions of a fighter pilot to keep it all in line. Fortunately, the ZR1’s overworked traction control system does a decent job of pointing you in the right direction.

The Corvette has to be admired for its raw pace and single-minded approach to high-performance motoring. But £106,605 is an awful lot of money considering the car’s failings in other key departments.

The Fiesta is our current Car of the Year, but now the new Polo is here to make sure the blue oval doesn’t have everything its own way. VW will be the first to admit that its new baby trades some of the Ford’s funkiness and cornering ability for a more grown-up feel – so can the biggest little car the German company has ever made cut it on UK roads?

Whereas the Fiesta is a feast of dynamic lines and taut surfaces, the Polo’s styling is aimed to be as inconspicuous as possible. Clean, uncluttered panels lead to a thin horizontal grille and sleek, swept-back headlights – all features that borrow heavily from the Golf, Scirocco and BlueSport Concept. It works well, giving a lean, mean and more chiselled look.

The Polo bears a striking resemblance to a shrunken Golf, and it is longer, wider and lower than the model it replaces. That means head, shoulder and legroom are improved all round, as well boot capacity.

This is now 280 litres, or 952 litres with the rear seats folded flat – only a few square centimetres short of those of the larger-proportioned Fiesta.

But despite the added practicality, engineers have reduced the car’s kerbweight by nearly eight per cent – part of the reason the new Polo delivers up to 20 per cent fuel savings across the board.

A line-up of clean-burning petrol engines includes a pair of naturally aspirated 1.2-litre units with either 59bhp or 69bhp, an 84bhp 1.4 and a feisty 104bhp 1.2 TSI turbo capable of returning 51.4mpg and emitting only 129g/km of CO2 – nearly identical figures to the non-turbo 1.2’s. A seven-speed DSG twin-clutch box can be specified on the 1.4; all the others get a slick-shifting five-speed manual.

Our car had the new 74bhp 1.6-litre TDI common-rail diesel taken from the Golf. And while 67.3mpg and CO2 emissions of 109g/km are impressive, it’s this oil-burner’s refinement that steals the show.

It won’t win any drag races, but 195Nm of torque is plenty on motorways and in town. However, sluggish throttle response below 2,000rpm will have you swapping down a cog to keep up with traffic.

Beneath the surface you’ll find VW’s new small-car platform, which is also set to underpin Audi’s imminent A1 supermini. Turn in sharply and the Polo can’t match the poise and precision of a Fiesta, but VW clearly wasn’t concerned with that, instead concentrating on giving it a more mature feel.

Suspension settings are beautifully judged, letting the car corner confidently yet shake off cracks and holes in the road with the skill of a much larger car.

And that’s a sensation which continues in the cabin. While it’s a fairly sombre and toned-down affair, the quality feel is undeniable. No other model on the market offers such a premium driving experience in a small and affordable package.

Four trim levels will be offered on the five-door in the UK: S, SE, Mode and SEL. Prices will start from £10,035 for the 59bhp 1.2-litre S when it goes on sale in October, undercutting the cheapest five-door Fiesta by £1,495.

A three-door will hit showrooms in December, costing around £1,000 less across the range, while the new BlueMotion, available from 2010, will set new standards for a combustion-engined car, with economy of 85.5mpg and CO2 emissions of 87g/km.

Rival: Ford Fiesta
Superb dynamics, eye-catching style and a roomy cabin have helped make the Fiesta our 2009 Car of the Year. The sole let-down is that Ford refuses to confirm a hot ST version is on the way!

Roger, over and out! Lotus’ long-serving engineering director, Roger Becker, is retiring – and to mark the occasion, the firm has built two scorching special editions. 

The limited-run RGB Elise and Exige S RGB also mark the end of the Toyota-sourced 1.8-litre petrol engine. This has powered a variety of memorable Lotus models, and disappears from the range at the end of the year as it falls foul of Euro V emissions rules – leaving the 1.6-litre Elise to soldier on. 

Both newcomers are based 
on the supercharged S models, and we drove the Exige. It inherits elements from the hardcore 260 Cup version, including a stiff rear subframe, lightweight wheels and 257bhp engine, which 
offers amazing acceleration.

The chassis really shines, 
too. The RGB is incredibly nimble and agile through corners, and while the steering is delicate in your hands, it’s super sharp and accurate. Also included are the Touring, Sport and Performance option packs, so this car has just about every creature comfort Lotus offers – even air-con. 

Other distinctive features 
are a numbered plaque, Becker’s signature on the rear end and a monochrome Lotus badge on the nose. There are only four colours: white, black, yellow and grey.

Travelling. The unfortunate end result of internal combustion and jet propulsion. The scourge of the modern age. It’s dangerous, it’s time-consuming and it’s irretrievably boring.

In the olden days when men wore hats made from wolves, no one wasted their lives by travelling from A to B, because B was too far away. Now, though, people are quite happy to spend 10 hours in an aluminium tube, watching all their veins clog up with lard, simply so they get a tan.

When you are on a plane you are achieving nothing and you are not enjoying yourself, so you are wasting the most precious commodity you have: time. If you’re middle-aged now you only have 200,000 hours left, and are you prepared to spend 20 of those being squashed, plus another 20 waiting to be squashed while someone confiscates your knitting needles? Especially as a recent survey found that, on average, the modern Briton now spends four years of their life in a car. That’s four years moving from place to place. Four years just travelling.

This is why I like cars that are fast. In the same way that an F-15 fighter can enliven air travel, a powerful engine can turn the most tedious slog into an adrenaline rush. I like the feel of g when a quick car accelerates, I like the cornering forces as it slices through the bends, and I love the sense of danger when you pull out to overtake and you’re not sure you’re going to make it.

Drive quickly and you turn the act of travelling into an adventure. You make those four years in a car exciting. You give them a point. And you will arrive at your destination sooner, too, which means you have more time to have fun. Put simply, 500bhp enriches your life.

Unfortunately, our present government has somehow arrived at the conclusion that it’s possible for there to be no accidents at all on the road, and that this can be achieved by removing the thrill of driving. So we’re being watched, and controlled and punished if we break its rules.

What’s more, ministers are saying that if we all drive around in Toyota Priuses at 17mph we will not only save ourselves but the planet as well. They cannot see the car as a thrill machine. They view it simply as an alternative to public transport. And as a result it is becoming increasingly difficult these days to hurtle round a corner, because hidden in a bush on the other side is a civil servant in a van.

So, if we can’t go quickly in a bid to make travelling more fruitful, then we must turn our attention to other alternatives. And that brings me neatly on to the question of club class.

Flying in the front of an aeroplane does not make the journey pass any more quickly but at least you don’t have to spend 10 hours with your face in a fat man’s armpit. The jump in price from economy to club is vast but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s worth every penny.

So does this apply on the road, I wonder? Is it worth spending £300,000 on a Rolls-Royce Phantom or a Maybach? Are they really three times better than a Mercedes S 55 AMG? And is the last word in automotive luxury a realistic alternative to power and speed and excitement? We shall begin with the Maybach 62, which nosed through the gates to my house, as requested, at 7.30am. The rear arrived about 40 minutes later. It is a vast car this, more than 20ft long and almost 6½ft wide.

So I think it’s fair to call the back-seat area generous. It’s so generous in fact that stretched out on one of the airline-style seats my legs did not even touch the partition that separates those in the rear from the driver.

With barely a sound, the twin-turbocharged V12 engine whispered into life and off we went, with me already starting to experiment. After a while I had one television set showing a sat nav display and the other showing breakfast news. Then I found the fridge, the button to move the headrest just so, and both the mobile phones.

And then I found the roof. It’s made of photochromatic glass, which at the twiddle of a switch can be fully frosted, very frosted, not frosted at all or completely opaque. I liked playing with this feature. In fact by the time I was bored with it we were in west London, at a set of lights where many eastern European builders were hanging around waiting to be picked up by contractors.

I don’t think they liked me very much, so I pushed another button and closed all the curtains.

Ah, the curtains. They were hideous, unless your name is Hyacinth Bucket and even your bog-roll cosy is rouched. In fact, come to think of it, the whole car was hideous. The exterior styling, the polished wood, the chromed uplighters. It was like one of those really expensive cabin cruisers that back up to the harbour wall in St Tropez.

What’s more, in a brief idle moment I caught sight of the dashboard on which, picked out in the finest plastic, was the legend “SRS Airbag”. Just like you find on a Mercedes S-class. And that’s the Maybach’s biggest problem. When all is said and done, and there’s much to say and lots to do, it is only an elongated Mercedes. So I always think of it as bespoke tailoring from Marks & Spencer. Fine I’m sure, but not quite the same as bespoke tailoring from Rolls-Royce.

There’s a lot less to do in the back of the Phantom, even the new long-wheelbase version I tried. This is 10in longer than the standard car and about £30,000 more expensive. That’s £3,000 an inch and that’s expensive. Every day I receive e-mails offering me extra inches for a lot less.

But when you climb into the back of this car and wade through an acre of thick pile carpet to your seat, let me tell you, it feels very good. Stepping out of the Maybach into this is like stepping out of a Sunseeker Camargue 47 and into the library at Blenheim Palace. Only with the most fabulous art deco fixtures and fittings.

Despite the BMW ownership these days, there’s nothing on the dash to suggest that this is anything but pure Rolls-Royce. You don’t have a rev counter, for instance. Instead you get a dial telling you how much power the engine has in reserve. Even at speed it usually reads 95%.

I’m sure the Phantom has an airbag but there’s no sign advertising the fact. It’s probably a brown paper bag and arrives in the cabin after a discreet “Ahem”.

My test car was fitted with a Stuart. The Stuart’s ability to accelerate and brake without causing my champagne to fall over was remarkable, and in direct contrast to the Gary that was installed in the Maybach. The Gary hustled. If you’re in a hurry you need a Gary. The Stuart drove like a Buddhist butler.

And that sums up how the cars feel. In the Maybach you sense all the time that you’re connected to the road, that you’re in a car. Whereas in the Rolls you get the sense that you’ve been picked up by a huge velvet glove. In the Maybach I played. In the Rolls I dozed.

It had a computer and televisions, of course. But if I were to buy a Phantom I’d specify it with a nice coal fire and a chimney. It already comes with wingbacks.

I spent four wonderful days being driven around in these monsters and can report that they are a realistic alternative to speed. Yes, you can get home faster in a Ferrari, but in the back of a Maybach or a Phantom you are doing what you’d be doing at home anyway. Sitting back, watching the news, with a glass of something chilled.

Are they worth three times more than a top S-class Mercedes? Oh, absolutely. In the same way that a Gulfstream V is worth a damn sight more than a Piper Cherokee. And now we arrive at the big one. Which is best? I’ve mocked the Maybach for being a jumped-up Mercedes, but that’s unfair. The sheer volume of gadgetry in its rear quarters means you quickly forget you’re on Mercedes suspension, behind a Mercedes engine. It is a wonderful way to travel if you are a northern businessman or a Kuwaiti or you have the mental age of a six-year-old. Which is not a criticism, by the way.

However, I would choose the Rolls. I like the engineering, I like the style, I absolutely adore the looks, but most of all I love the sensation that you’re inside something that was designed to be “the best car in the world”. I think, though, it’s more than that. I think that in these difficult and dark days it’s actually the best way to travel.

VITAL STATISTICS

Model Maybach 62
Engine V12, 5513cc
Power 550bhp @ 5250rpm
Torque 664 lb ft @ 3000rpm
Transmission Five-speed auto
Fuel 15.9mpg (combined)
CO2 N/A
Acceleration 0-62mph: 5.4sec
Top speed 155mph
Price £298,800
Verdict A very posh Merc is still a Merc
Rating 3/5

Model Rolls-Royce Phantom Engine V12, 6749cc
Power 453bhp @ 5350rpm
Torque 531 lb ft @ 3500rpm
Transmission Six-speed auto
Fuel 17.8mpg
CO2 385g/km
Acceleration 0-60mph: 5.7sec
Top speed 149mph
Price Not yet available
Verdict Bespoke driving style with impeccable taste
Rating 4/5