They did say that, right?
The May issue of Motor Trend hit newsstands and doorsteps early last week with unauthorized pictures of the 2008 Subaru WRX that will be officially unveiled this Thursday at the New York auto show, and Subaru got more publicity than it could possibly have been looking for. A firestorm of comment, criticism and outright mockery greeted the chrome-nosed WRX hatchback, which, it can be said, looks unusual.
The Internet forums of the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club (NASIOC), where poorly photographed shots of the Motor Trend story were first posted, exploded. In two-and-a-half days, the string of commentary ran 59 pages long, with 1,464 posts and 173,725 views. Considering the site has just 135,047 members, this is a staggering number.
Among those posting comments is a gentleman known as "wackydude," who wanted to see the new WRX wipe out live poultry. In a subsequent post, he later explained, "Chicken guts and intestines spread all over the car may make it look more attractive." Um, sure.
Another community that has caught fire this past week is the 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX discussion in our CarSpace Forums, where comments range from, "Kinda looks like a Kia Spectra5 to me" to "Let's hope it looks better in person."
Pile-on
While few posters were as colorfully creative as wackydude, the overwhelming majority of comments were made by those (perhaps emboldened by relative anonymity) who hated the new car.
Here is a sampling of excerpts:
- "Somebody find the Subaru designer and SHOOT him, and then shoot his team...this is AWFUL."
- "The car looks like a doofus."
- "I love the steering wheel. That's about it."
- "Glad to say I already own one, 'cause there is no way in hell I would be caught in that Ford Focus/Mazda love child."
- "Well, at least now the Tribeca doesn't have to feel like the only ugly child."
- "Seriously, this thing makes Quasimodo look like a jock prom king."
A conspicuously large number of posters claimed to have vomited in their mouths. One movie buff created a photo illustration combining the new WRX with the scene of the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand that concludes Planet of the Apes and added his own version of the movie's memorable line of dialogue, "The maniacs! Subaru screwed it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
The most venomous attacks aimed squarely for the new chrome grille, which is compared — and not favorably — to the grille featured by the Chrysler minivan or Sebring sedan. Predictably, the car's Mazda 3-like profile was a topic of some consternation.
As is often the case with Internet forums, the discussion quickly degenerated into a game of one-upmanship, petty insults and general potty-mouthing. Save for a few weak calls for restraint, the car's design was panned. Of the few who ventured a contrary opinion, this weak defense was typical: "Honestly...I like it. One thing I learned from being on this site is everyone hates on it for a month or so, then as they see it more, they begin to change their minds."
And these comments are from Subaru fans.
The home-team conundrum
Part of the vehemence surely comes from the fact that these comments are from passionate followers of Subaru — they joined the club, for goodness sakes.
Not so long ago, Subaru owners were stereotyped as granola-munchers from the Northeast with their radio dials glued on NPR. But when the company began importing the turbocharged, 227-horsepower Impreza WRX in 2001 as a 2002 model, it unexpectedly tapped into a market of enthusiasts who were ravenously hungry for just this sort of affordable, rally-inspired performance car. Since Subaru had been building similar cars for the Japanese market since 1992, the pent-up U.S. demand led sales to explode. Subaru expected to sell 10,000 WRXs in the U.S. for the concluding eight months of 2001 after the car was introduced. Instead, it sold 18,000. Over the full calendar year of 2002, Subaru sold 23,000 WRXs.
You can argue that the Subaru Impreza WRX invented the sport-compact market as we know it. The WRX's success inspired the 271-hp Mitsubishi Lancer Evo that came to the U.S. shortly afterward, and Subaru followed up with the 300-hp WRX STi in 2004. The all-wheel-drive WRX became a ride of choice for a generation of enthusiasts who grew up on front-drive hot rods. To say that owners feel passionately about the WRX model would be an understatement.
Jamie Vondruska, who runs vwvortex.com, a forum site that had five pages of negative commentary and 8,000 views about the new WRX as we write this, told us, "It doesn't surprise me that much that the reaction is generally negative. This is the same cycle we've seen with a lot of new cars, including with the last couple of new VW GTIs. But this is pretty extreme."
Still, no WRX has ever been considered pretty. Not the "bugeye" first-generation U.S. WRX. Not the "blobeye" version of 2004-'05. And not the "pignose" of 2006-'07. And as a few message-posters pointed out, each of these models was panned at the time as ugly or not conventionally sexy by even the most dedicated fans.
"It's just like sports teams. You've got very loyal guys," says Vondruska. "But being a Subaru fan is sort of like being a Cubs fan. It becomes conspicuous."
Dominick Infante of Subaru of America's public relations department says he believes reaction has been negative largely because the photos, as represented on the site, are of such poor quality.
Carryover outcry
It's not just the looks of the new WRX that are drawing raspberries from every basement-dwelling keyboard jockey, though. The sharp eyes of the faithful have noticed that the front brakes of the 2008 model have two-pot calipers in place of the four-piston units featured by the outgoing WRX, while the carryover-specification, 224-hp 2.5-liter flat-4 with its five-speed manual transmission doesn't exactly make for ecstatic copy either. Lost on the excitable forum posters is the fact that despite its increased dimensions, the new 2008 WRX is actually lighter than the outgoing model.
Subaru fans might have been outraged, but the denizens of general-interest car forums have been equally dismissive of the new car, which could portend even worse things for Subaru when the 2008 WRX is actually unveiled at the New York show on Thursday, April 5. To bring the whole dust-up to an oddly tidy conclusion, someone posted the poor-quality images of the Motor Trend article on the magazine's own Web forums. As one poster on the MT forum noted, "The exterior looks like the a$$ end of a smoky link."
We suppose that's better than being splattered with chicken intestines.
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