The Queen's hearse was pretty cool, Jaguar with big panoramic greenhouse, it looked like the suspension was lowered too, nicely slammed.

 

Thought of you yesterday Joey. We had a cruise-in where I work and I met a guy who was an engineer with Subaru and he was involved with development of the new WRX. He said they spent about 5 years on it and they pretty much eliminated all of the issues with the previous generation.

 

Hey Rob, wow, I'd love a chance to talk about the car with someone like that, very cool. Yeah at first glance the car isn't outwardly impressive, but once you dive into all of the small details they improved over the last generation it is a nice evolutionary change. I had no strong urge to buy the 2022 but after seeing it in person and driving it I liked the changes. I am being told my car is about 2-3 weeks from getting in my hands. It has been a long order process.

 

It was very interesting talking to him. He said at one point they were trying to get Subaru to get rid of the E.J. engine and they had someone from corporate in Japan come over and they had performed a bunch of tests to prove why the engine should be redesigned but in the end at that point the corporate guy said no we are not changing it.
He said the FA 2.0 Liter engines like we have in our cars are good motors stock. One of his jobs was to build one to see what it could take and he said after 3 days of basically beating on it on a track he threw a rod on it. He said at that point the car had close to 500 h.p. and was making 26 pounds of boost.

 

I've been pretty happy with the 2.0 L turbo, and a lot has been made about the new 2.4L motor making little gains over the 2.0 L motor. But my 2L motor peaks at 21 psi boost, and the new motor is like 14 psi, so lots of potential for more power if anyone wants to explore it. The power level is fine for me. The new motor makes more torque when not in boost so that is good, and it is a much smoother power band right up to redline, the 2.0 L motor has some peaks and valleys as you go through the rev range. Going from an automatic 2.0L setup to the new automatic 2.4L setup I will gain 1 mpg, so nothing to sacrifice. I have also seen some real world testing of the 2022 powertrain and people have been getting fuel economy numbers quite a bit higher than advertised - 27 mpg advertised vs. 31 mpg actual real world highway driving.

 

I'm fine with the power too I plan to keep mine stock. Only complaint I would have would be the non-linear powerband but not a major deal to me the car does what I need it to do and I enjoy driving it. My powertrain warranty runs out in June of 23 so I will see how things go maybe I will trade it in but I do like the styling of mine a lot better. I was at the Subie dealer last week and was talking with a couple of the sales guys and they said that Subaru is telling them that things aren't looking much better as far as getting inventory in 23 so we will see what happens.

 

When my sales guy tried to talk me into trading up to the 23 model I looked it over and said to myself that there weren't enough changes to make it worthwhile for me to switch. I then test drove a 6-speed manual model and I liked the linear power band better, I liked the handling better, and the steering. The rear brake rotors are now ventilated and the front brakes are dual piston. I also liked the infotainment system, and some of the electronic items. The clutch and shifter on the manual were very nice. The new automatic is improved for my model with some nice features.

The black exterior accents are a bit odd, they look better with darker colours, like a dark grey or black. I got the ice silver , which isn't too bad. I can live with it.

 

The first hearse she was in was a Mercedes. I thought that was an odd choice, since the Germans tried to bomb England into oblivion.

 

The House of Windsor has its roots in Germany. But the Queen was quite fond of her Land Rovers.

 

I thought this was a good assessment of where things stand with the move to EV's.

https://www.mlive.com/public-interes...s-powered.html