jl4069

Just read ECOTY, and boy what lack of effort that went into that piece. It read more like a 12, or maybe a 14 year olds traveloge. Pages and pages (well actually an Evo page is more like a few paragraphs) of text dedicated to ideas such as: "We stayed here, we drank this there, we ate that over here, Bill drove all the way from there, John drove from X to Z, Dave dropped off the car at P, and then we had some more beer, oh and did I mention we had loads of bacon and eggs".

The Evo team have got it made in the shade. All they have to do is keep writing slightly more in-depth articles than CAR, and provide more pictures, and then they can all go home or on vacation. The public is buying Evo like never before- their circulation is at an all time high. Darn this capitalist system or is it just the readers? Anyway, it sure would be nice to see some sort of competition for Evo, a creation of some sort of need for them to engage in brillant journalism.

Anyway to the type 25. In prior issues they absolutly loved it, saying it was the best Impreza they had ever driven. In Ecoty, on roads the 25 was built for, in conditions the 25 was built for; all I managed to glean was that the car had great grip, no understeer and that it scared to **** out of everyone who drove it? Now maybe the editors could have actually compared the car to the others, not in theory but really? Or would that be too hard? Maybe some words that explain why the car scared everyone so much? Was it scary only because it was so much faster than all the others, so boldly ravaging the road? Or is the car really scary, its new steering too sharp or indirect, its suspension too hard, the new front-diff too inefficient? Or arte its new wider wheels and tires to fat? Which is it?

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Who cares? I make up my own mind when I buy a car. I'm not swayed by mag articles.

F

Gutmann pug

Dont buy it then you wont have to moan

Rumplestiltskin!

Lets not forget that this is the mag (more so when it was Performance Car) that lost loads of readers as they went on & on month after month about how great the Scooby was, like no other car existed.
Bout time they did a bit of Scooby bashing to even things up a bit !

Gutmann pug

I didnt think they bashed the scoob. Every car on that test was there on its own merit. Think of how many 'also rans' didnt make the article.

braaaptish

Evo has one of the highest quality levels of photography you'll come across in a car mag - for me the prose is secondary ... although it is usually fairly good.

LitchfieldImports

I thought the review was pretty good I wouldn’t want to write about 14 cars in a relatively short space. I also know how much time they spend talking and deliberating over the merits of each car.
They set themselves an almost impossible task as each car is usually the best in its class/market but then how do you compare a £13k Clio with a £70k Porsche. I'm not sure the car of the year article needs to go into to much detail as that was done in previous issues on the individual cars. They dedicated 9 pages to the Type 25, WR1, Spec C and P1 in the May issue

Iain

www.litchfieldimports.co.uk

Neil Smalley

Next years Evo COTY will be a single page which will be dedicated to the 911

FrenchBoy

Have to agree! It did seem like there wasn't very much said about the cars.
At least it wasn't a complete Supercar w@nkfest like it was last month.

GRIFF007

....discussing how many bratwurst and Pilsner they consumed hither and thither to the Ring and back

I agree, the article could viirtually have been written from Northants office - I too get fed up with the travelogue padding creeping into car journalism

But WHAT REALLY MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL - This insane craze of covering every car test on TV with MINDLESS MUSAC - Turn ignition on lates Pagani Honda as presenter rabbits on about how exciting the new 200 valve NASA derived 16 cylinder engine sounds - Queue Musac - and go - car launches to a sound of mindless Musac. Car smokes to a halt with sweaty presenter falling out the door - Musac stops..............................

What on Earth are they thinking - if it is a car enthusiast program, presenting the latest ang greatest with a real road test - WE WANT TO HEAR THE ENGINE - how difficult is that to understand??????!!!!

If anyone out there agrees perhaps we can draw up a petition to bring back the sounds before the modern youth grow up thinking that a Lambo sounds like Status Quo or similar......................................

GRIFF007

Not sure I would have been so generous Ian - why is your car 'likely to kill you?' - I have been a huge fan of your efforts (though yet to drive one) and this report was the first to put me off my active pursuit to that goal...

There is fast and there is dangerous, we both know a fast car doesnt HAVE to be dangerous, however that is the impression I was left with - similarly the EVo400 got a similar slating & JB prefers the WRX PPP to STi PPP - are the EVO lads getting a bit OLD & SOFT??!

john banks

I think they are saying the limits are so high that you can't responsibly play with them on the road. Some people disagree on this, but I like a car with limits so high it will always be secure on the road as my own preservation instincts (or commonsense) kick in before I reach them, or more the lack of vision preventing you from using all the cornering grip or power available for very long so that you could stop in the space you can see to be clear. So a car like the Type 25 is either your meat or your poison depending on which camp you're in?

I would give the award to the car which for value for money gives the quickest point to point ability in all conditions with predictability whilst remaining practical. That is why I'm still in an Impreza.

FrenchBoy

Just had a quick read of the Autocar 'Best Hot Car for less than 20K' article.

It was in many ways superior to the Evo article. Each car gets a page dedicated to it and actually tells you what they're like to drive - which I thought was quite novel.

Crap photos apart it was a lot better.

The Clio 182 Cup won of course! It beat the WRX around the track by nearly 2 seconds! (WRX came 3rd after the Golf GTI - so another good review for the new Golf.)

Gutmann pug

Reagrding the type 25 comments

There is of course always the thought that at £35K new or in the second hand market shortly for £25k the type 25 is a massive performance vehicle available to the masses. This sort of power was previously only available to the very fortunate with £70K to spend. Some would say that these people would be more careful and mature with this power......but with this car is available to everyone.
Personally I would love one, could I be trusted in it, probably not. Would I be dangerous in it? most definately, would I come a cropper? who knows.

Its the reason I never past my bike test. For around £3K you can have something capable of over 180mph .....its absolutely completley and utterly ridiculous IMHO

Keep up the good work though Litcho, great car and fair play to you for getting into that shoot-out with something which is a kit car. (no dis-respect meant)

Gary

ps .shame they dont make the racing type R anymore

LitchfieldImports

I agree with John and Gary.
I think what they meant with both the Evo and Type 25 is that to test their limits on the road you will be travelling at terrifying speeds. The roads were wet/greasy, narrow and with huge undulations making them extremely challenging at speed. Oh course you don’t have to drive this fast

Iain

Gutmann pug

Agreed

Old_Fart

It's a great result for the car. For one thing no IM Impreza gets a look in. Secondly it beats the Evo and the Monaro, which are direct competition. It then thrashes the RS6 and beats the Maserati (damn you Iain! Italy rules!)
Things that beat it don't strike me as compareable really, Lotus and Boxster more classicaly sporting (RWD, mid engine etc) Clio..hmmmm stripped out and fun, FWD. 911? Everyone knows Speed Yellow cars are best
Congrats Iain. Next you need to do something to make Audi A3's genuinely sporting cars...mine kinda sticks out in the garage as a red-headed stepchild...needs help LOL
Rgds
Chuck

LitchfieldImports

Thanks Chuck, My favourite on those roads was the Exige and the Porsches were just about perfect. In fact Curtis @ Powerstation will have one in the new year

7 Foot

I put the magazine down with the feeling that the vast majority were extremely impressed with the T25. I also felt, and still feel, an overwhelming urge to drive/own one, more so now than before my copy popped through the front door. Is it really that capable (scary) on the road???

With regard to the 'travelogue' (never typed that b4), I enjoy reading the events that take place during a test, for me it creates an atmosphere. That said I did feel that there wasn't enough written around actually driving the cars in this particular article. I know there has been much written in past issues but we all know experiences and opinions can be completely different in a different location, on a different day with a diffrent driver. Look at the thoughts on Maserati for example.

And . . . considering Richard Meaden's track record I do wonder why the pudgy pigmy was bricking himself quite so much when driving the A4 DTM. I know it was damp and foggy but the track was empty and he wasn't against the clock - wuss

Gutmann pug

To be fair I think for the money the Exige takes some beating. A great track car and much lighter on consumables than the scoob. I would have one for sure.

7 Foot

I agree. I was invited to the opening of a new Lotus dealership in my area and to test drive the Exige. Couldn't make it to the open day but they let me out in it the following Monday - massive fun but you don't half have to keep those revs up.

Mine was orange on that Monday

dietbruboy

I long since binned EVO - it's just tosh written by teens driving at 'ten tenths' (or whatever that stupid phrase is).

Their fascination with motorsport and trackday cars drives me up the f*cking wall too. I waited ages for them to do a 'buying a used Nissan 200SX' but did they do it? Did they buggery!

I've got a pregnant wife, a kid, a pressing need for pram space but still want something with a goodly amount of punch - not something with a ride height lower that a snakes codpiece.

CAR is a superior mag in every way (apart from maybe the photography) and in particular the maturity of the writers shines through.

Not like this post at all then.

CAR Fanboy.

Daz34

They still managed to bend their MR340 long termer!

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I Agree with John, Gary and Iain,

I don't thing the magazine in any way implied that the type 25 was dangerous. I think they were all simply amazed about how much "grip and go" it had and speculated at the kind of sppeds you'd need to travel to get it out of shape, which would -of course-be irresponsible on a public road.

I think they just wondered if they could be trusted not to take the p*ss with it on the public roads! I think their reservations originated from the fact that you'll never feel like you're testing the T25 on the road and how "Evo" is that? I don't agree at all. I'm with John: I prefer a car you can have fun with at sensible speeds knowing that it's not going to bite! I think a lot of the fun with the T25 would be derrived with the ease with which it would leave pretty much anything behind! I also don't see how he 911 can't be guilty of the same thing that they level at the T25. Surely that also has more performance than you'd ever use on the road.

I'll be keeping my eye on the 2nd hand T25 market in the next few years, (or if I stumble into some more money) but for the moment I'll stick with my standard classic turbo- which still feels very quick- to me, anyway. :-)

Iain, one thing the article didn't mention, does the T25 still have the famous scooby burble, or has it been sacrificed for the equal length manifold in the same way that the JDM cars have?

Best wishes

ARRON BIRD

Next they`ll be saying the WR1 is a better car

ARRON BIRD

Which it clearly is

jl4069

The roads that evo used for this test, have been used over and again in their tests. With this in mind Evo have commented rather differently about many other Impreza's- including P1, RB-5, basic spec, Spec C. In each of these other Wales tests they commented on how progressive, predicable and easy it was to approach limits and yes, even play about on the limit in those cars. Those are the very merits they found special about those cars. This review did not reflect any of those sentiments. Bottom line, there just was not much thought put into the writing itself. Ian, I can understand what you are saying- I know how hard the evo group works as a team trying to arrange the cars, the shots and the driving- I know thats hard work. But call me crazy, I say put some of that effort into the actual article, write some details for @#@ sake. I feel I learned very little about how these cars actually handle in comparison to one another. I for one have found John Barkers writing in past issues to be able to accomplish that detail.

ARRON BIRD

Evo are a bunch of muppets.
Bit like most journo`s if you ask me.....just like most of the bike magazines.
Martin Brundles test in one of the others a little while back was far more conclusive.
At least he can drive

LitchfieldImports

The Spec C Car of the year test was done in Scotland where the roads we a lot wider and before that in the German mountains so you felt like you could take more liabilities with the car The Spec C also had the standard suspension which gives it less grip and poorer ride quality the Type 25’s Powerstation handling kit. This meant the you felt like you’d reached the limits far faster.
The Type 25’s suspension and grip are much better so naturally the speeds are going to be even higher/scarier before you start to reach them.
You have to weigh up what you want, if you want low speed frills everyone would be driving MX-5’s or better yet Type 25’s with 195 tyres

Arron I’m sure if you had been there the clouds would have parted and light would have shined on your greatness lol I’ll invite them to our next trackday and you can teach them all how to drive as clearly they have forgotten just how good you are

Iain

jasonius

iTrader: (1)

I think you read it a bit too quick as around the track the cup did 81.4 sec, wrx 81.6 and gti 82.2!
Cup still quicker but only 0.2 sec not 2 sec. Which give the cups a great track car and impreza not really a track car is quite good. Also the wrx was a wagon!

They pointed out the usual problem of the brakes on the scoob fading too quickly and also that for very little outlay (exhust/ecu) performance can be upped quite significantly.

Now the clio is a great car (especially for 13000), I had one, I just needed something bigger and for the 16500 I paid it leaves me with money to mod. Their ratings were based on the list price of 19500 and overall wrx came 3rd to gti 20k and cup.

Still i know what I'm happiest with!