It’s kind of hard to imagine, but even back in 1998 the idea of a sporty Subaru was still pretty foreign to most Americans. Its most well-known US model was the Brat, and the marque was known mostly for utilitarian machines like the Justy or Loyale Wagon. Sure, there was the SVX, but that might as well have been a spaceship, and depressingly few people knew about the GT. The idea that Subaru could build a sports coupe that could give the Eclipse Turbo or Toyota MR2 a run for their money was unthinkable to most.
Those in the know were already clamoring for the Japan-market WRX STi, but Subaru was painfully slow in sharing those models with us. It’s almost as if they didn’t have confidence that Americans would “get” the whole turbocharged rally thing. Polling probably told them that our idea of a car race was NASCAR or Top Fuel dragsters.
So, Subaru drip-fed us the Impreza 2.5 RS first, a naturally aspirated, larger displacement variant of its home-market EJ20-powered Impreza WRX. They dropped in a 2.5-liter boxer from the Legacy to replace the 1.8- or 2.2-liter on grocery getter-spec Imprezas. The result was one of the best performance car bargains you could get. Motorweek absolutely loved it, and used the opportunity to school Americans on what rally racing was.
The base price stickered at $19,690, which was about the price of the beloved 1999 EM1 Civic Si. Power was 5 more, but with the Impreza you got all-wheel-drive and a lot more torque. Motorweek‘s test in a 5-speed manual (you could get a 4AT, but why?) clocked a 0-60 time of 8.2 seconds, which was admittedly a second slower than that of the Si. But, they commended the driving dynamics, which matched those of European coupes that cost twice as much.
It’s a pity that Subaru never offered the full-blown first-gen WRX STi here, but the 2.5 RS is significant because it proved to some product planner or marketing exec somewhere at Fuji Heavy Industries that Subaru could indeed sell a sporty car in the U.S. They ended up selling a little over 14,000 of them over four years. It’s not a huge number, but you could say that the 2.5 RS was a success, because it opened the door for the bug-eye WRX that followed, and the blob-eye WRX STi after that.
Plus, it’s a legit performance Subaru that was unique to the North American market, so that should lend it some collectibility cred today. The only problem, after decades of cheap Craiglist trades, is finding one in halfway decent condition in the first place. Most were trashed by privateer rally teams and kids. If any remain in decent condition, now would be the time to preserve it.
I remember in 99/2000, most of us were into Hondas because it was the car to modify. Fortunately, I wasn’t just into street racing and went to local SCCA events and learn so much about the RS 2.5 Imprezas potential.
Being from the PNW, off roading and club rally events were at home.
But with people chopping and heavily modifying cars to be crazy builds… finding one in decent condition is harder. I know a couple of beat up ones running around the streets of Oakland.