THERE are certain ways that car-makers are able to increase the rush out of the showroom door. Of these, the easiest for us buyers, spending our own hard-earned dollars, to understand is price.

Here, then, is Subaru’s all-new, fourth-generation WRX STI, featuring an engine and chassis fine-tuned by the car-maker’s Subaru Tecnica International performance arm that turns up the wick on just about everything, summed up in hip-pocket friendly terms: it is now $10,000 cheaper than before, and only $6000 more than the most expensive WRX from which it has spawned.

There are benefits to joining the STI club, defined from afar by the yawning air scoop on the bonnet and the big, wide spoiler that hangs off the back of the bootlid – more for show than for enhancing road-holding ability.

But as the saying goes, does paying the performance equivalent of peanuts for the cheapest STI-badged car ever made mean you’re just going to end up with monkeys?

It’s a bit of both, actually.

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