[s-cars] Re: also starting to consider other awd sedans

[Larry C Leung]

Driven (and although not on a closed course, DROVE one. Some salesmen
like to have fun!),
that. It drives fairly well, kind of like an A4 1.8TQ on steroids, but
not the ones that Giambi took.

Reasonably torquey down low, with little lag, but gets out of breath at
the far right of both sets
of gauges. BTW, it's a somewhat de-tuned 2.5 T, from the STi. Same engine
as in the Forrester
XT. Still pretty punchy if not quite viscerally the same as a chipped
UrS. Of course, anything you
could do to an STi you could do to the Legacy GT/Forrester XT. Chassis
feels quite solid, but
the feedback through the wheel is somewhat numb. It coud use more tire.
Performancewise,
not at all a bad package. The 5 sp seemed pretty decent, really didn't
call any attention to itself.

Now, the not as good parts. Exterior styling, actually rather nice. Paint
still not germanic, but
it IS less expensive, interior plastics, ALMOST in the range of BMW,
better than the 'muricans,
but alot of silver painted plastic. The disappointment is in the features
(or lack thereof). The 
straight GT has rather course cloth upholstery, okay seats, no power
adjustments. Other minor
missing things, can't recall the details. Not availible with a sunroof.
Need to go upmarket 
(now to over $32K) to get leather, pwr seats with memory, and the
sunroof. 

All in all, still QUITE worth considering, especially in light of the
performance potential. What 
I would most consider would be the wagons cargo room. For the somewhat
near the price of a Passat
or A4, you could have a car that actually approaches the A6's cargo area.
I got a bit of a surprise 
today using a first gen Legacy in my home remodelling project. I had the
ability to move some 
panel doors in that little beast with room to spare that I had difficulty
with in my Mom's Passat wagon. 
If the newer car has the same length (and I KNOW it has more width), it
actually has quite alot of
utility. Really, really not a bad package if you keep that in mind.

LL - NY

Joey riced:

> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 10:44:26 -0500
> From: Joe Pizzimenti <joe.pizzimenti at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] also starting to consider other awd sedans
> To: Mark Chang <mark.chang at gmail.com>
> Cc: s-car-list at audifans.com
> Message-ID: <521f4dda04120907441647779d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> How about a Subaru Legacy GT?  Rumor has it that next year they're
> bringing it over with a high revving 2.0L turbo or even a variation 
> of
> the STi 2.5L turbo motor
> 
> German Shmerman.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:37:45 -0500, Mark Chang <mark.chang at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 06:51:29 -0500, Pasqualoni, James E
> > <james.pasqualoni at gs.com> wrote:
> > > A3 Sportback 2.0t/3.2 quattro.  Will be available in NA in, wow, 
> just about
> > > a year ;~}
> >