It's a shame but too be honest the emissions/economy are shocking now compared to similar performing cars offered from BMW etc.
Such as?
I think the M135i is hard to match by anyone... it's a performance bargain.
Whoever pushed BMW to bring up economy on fast cars frst should be made grandfuhrer or whatever they do in Germany.
Subaru WRX STI 320R
Price: £32,995; 0-62mph: 4.9 seconds; Economy: 26.9mpg; Co2: 243g/km;
BMW M135i
Price: £29,995; 0-62mph: 5.1 seconds; Economy: 35mpg; Co2: 188g/km;
(or get it with the Auto...)
Price: £31,750; 0-62mph: 4.9 seconds; Economy: 37mpg; Co2: 175g/km
It has to be said those figures from BMW are pretty impressive and having read numerous reviews for the 135i, people are getting closer to 40mpg when driving normally. Would I rather have the Scooby, yes I would but in reality I'd have to get my head examined to pick it over the BMW as a daily driver.
Dealer prices are lower than BMW now. Plus you get AWD.
So the Subaru WRX STI is now cheaper, quicker in dry and wet, probably cheaper to maintain.
27mpg is hardly a killer for the performance! Its no worse than Focus RS, VXR etc
Checkout the RX8 thread if you want to see poor economy
I'm sure direct injection would have helped a lot. But they were still using quite old tech on the engines.
The main differences between 1990's cars and 2000's cars was the introduction of the AVCS, then on the hatch they added it to all four cams instead of just the two inlet cams. Differences apart from that? Not much...
It's a shame the way the automotive world is going but it seems affordable performance is a thing of the past. Cars are becoming too expensive to maintain and people haven't got the money for increased petrol costs, tax, tyres etc.
Go back to mid 90's early 00's and look at the big three Japanese automakers.
Toyota
Celica GT4
Supra
MR2 Turbo
Nissan
Skyline R33/R34 GTR
200SX
300ZX
Honda
NSX Type R
Accord Type R
Civic Type R
S2000
Fast forward to today and all you have on offer is either the 370Z or GT86 as affordable performance motoring. The GTR whilst still being great value for money is way out of reach compared to the previous models.
As for Subaru and Mitsubishi I think the demise of the WRC and them not competing in it has hurt their sales a lot. I haven't watched a WRC in nearly a decade but before that it was a different story.
It's a shame the way the automotive world is going but it seems affordable performance is a thing of the past.
I beg to differ sir, have a look at the BMW 135i. Reasons are outlined above, it's quicker, safer and much more economical than anything in the 90's.
If you take inflation into consideration it is an absolute steal for the money.
There's more to it then just that, someone who wants a Scoob will get a Scoob. Someone who wants something sporty for 30k will way up other factors like residuals, servicing costs, consumable and of coures, clunge-magnet factor.