Evo 6 / Subaru P1 / Audi RS4

This is outrageous. The speed these cars can carry through corners is only slightly less disturbing than the pace they can achieve between them. As for the way they stop and steer it's just not normal compared with other fast cars.

Trouble is, all I feel out here in the middle of a Welsh nowhere, howling along at such an incredible lick, is a strange sense of guilt. I mean, it just seems crazy to be covering so much ground so quickly while putting so little effort into it. It begs the question as to whether it's actually possible to OD on cars like this, to have so much of a good thing that the experience begins to sour.

Subaru and Prodrive whose new P1 could well be the fastest A-to-B machine created, don't seem to think so. The P1's goal in life is nothing if not straightforward: it seeks to out­-Evo the Evo VI by being not just faster across country but also calmer and more refined.

Whether you agree with the ethics or not of attempting to create an even swifter machine than the manic Mitsubishi, it's difficult not to be swayed by Prodrive's argument for building the Pl in the first place. Marketing boss Hugh Chambers claims the thrust of the P1 is "to enable you to drive very quickly from Scotland to London but arrive feeling fresh and relaxed." Before all you cynics point out that the best way to do this is to hire a Mercedes S-class, get on the M6 and set the cruise control to 70mph, there is a point behind the anecdote.

The Evo's one weakness is its harsh and uncompromising ride. It's so rough on some roads that I know of owners who have sold their Evos because they couldn't stand the pummeling. The theory is that if the P1 can match the Evo dynamically while providing a level of ride that doesn't require a visit to the dentist every three months then it should be the better car.

So why the Audi you might well be wondering? Why put a £36,645 sports saloon against a thinly disguised rally car and a £31,495 super-coupe when we already know it’s likely to get hammered at the first sniff of a decent road? Well, if the P1 really is as refined as Subaru says it is we can’t think of a better way of testing it than against the beautifully crafted S4. In any case, the Audi also has four-wheel drive and 265bhp from its twin-turbo V6. And when it comes to rallying heritage it lobs dust in the faces of both Japanese cars.

Wales is dry and quiet this morning and as we head for the roads that these cars were built for it’s obvious that the P1 is a more smooth companion than the mad-for-it Evo and the surprisingly fidgety S4. It glides across bumps and ruts that the Audi and Mitsubishi thump down into, its superior damping providing a level of composure that is genuinely hard to link with the astonishing body control the car displays over high-speed crests. The P1’s seats also clamp you in position even better than the others. As soon as you settle down into them you get the impression that you’re driving a car that will round corners rather faster than is wise on the public road.

It’s expectations such as these that form the intricate part of the P1’s core appeal. You look at the wing and the spotlights and the deep chin spoiler and think it can’t be anything other than electric to drive. Then you climb inside and wiggle the gear lever, realizing at the same time how snug the driving position is, and the assumptions become reality right in front of your eyes.

It's still a fairly basic car inside, always an Impreza weak point. Were it not for the seats it would not feel like 31 grand's worth. Then again, neither would the Evo. Only the S4 gives you an accurate reflection of the amount of wedge you've blown, but gorgeous interiors have long been synonymous with Audis, especially ones that bear the magic S.

In this company however that's pretty much where the S-4's appeal draws to a close. We wondered whether the Audi's rippling 295lb ft of torque and quattro drivetrain might provide a platform from which the S4 could launch at least some form of attack, but the -reality is it can't. Quite apart from the unexpectedly high levels of wind noise and its dubious ride, the stodgy S4 really struggles to keep up when the roads turn twisty. Worse still, its steering and gearchange are cumbersome in this context. The further we travelled in Wales, in fact, the more obvious: it became that the S4 was not talking the same language as the others.

That said, how many cars are there that can keep up with an Evo and a Pl across country? Half a handful at most.

Up front, though, there is still a discernible gap even between the two Japanese cars, dynamically. Despite what we may have said when we first drove the development Pl beside the Evo late last year, the latter car still has the edge, and the surprising thing is how big that advantage is in some areas. The reasons for this take a little explaining.

The Evo we drove against that first Pl was apparently bought from a grey importer by Prodrive, not from Ralliart UK who supply all the official cars sold by the Colt Car Company. It seems that a Ralliart Evo at £30,995 is well worth the extra £3000 or so you pay above a grey import. If nothing else, it ensures you'll get a crisper car in a straight line thanks to Ralliart's adjustments to the boost solenoid, not to mention a three-year warranty.

The difference is enough to make a P1 driver have to use all of the available 8200rpm in all of the gears to avoid being dropped by a hard-charging Ralliart Evo, and the test track figures prove it. The Pl gets to 60mph in 4.7sec and 100mph in 12.3sec, and needs 4.8sec to scramble from 30-70mph.

The Evo slashes vital tenths from all these times 4.4, 11.2 and 4.1sec, placing it in an even more exclusive band of ultra-high performance cars.

Beside these two the Audi - splendid in isolation but nowhere in this contest - is left to pick up the pieces, taking 5.5sec to reach 60mph. 14.8sec to do 100mph and 5.9sec between 30 and 7Omph.

On the road it's the Evo's shorter, more manic gearing allied to its sharper throttle response that makes it feel even more bombastic than the P1 and in a different league from the Audi. In the Subaru there's not so much a delay when you put your foot down in a high gear from 50mph, more a softness of response for the first second or so before the snap of acceleration arrives.

In the Evo the surge occurs near enough the instant you squeeze the pedal. It feels like the difference between loading and firing a catapult as quickly as you can and merely pulling the trigger on a gun.

Yet there is something almost as compelling as the Evo's extra raw urge in the way- the P1 so slickly- goes about delivering its performance. The boxer engine is so refined and so free from vibration, even up at 8OOOrpm. that you begin to wonder whether it's strictly necessary to lust after the Evo's extra wallop when it's accompanied by so much extra noise and drama. The gearchange, too, is more fluid in the Pl, though ultimately the Evo's shift is faster and slightly more satisfying when the red mist washes across the windscreen. Little details, yes but these are the things that separate legends. Except, that is, for the way these cars steer and stop. It's difficult to think another road car on sale that is able to stop for corners and turn into them like the Evo, and sadly the P1 is a long way from being one of them.

Originally Prodrive said it was going to fit the P1 with a fast steering rack from the WRX, but it subsequently ditched the idea and used standard Impreza Turbo rack. As a result the P1 may well be less nervous than the Evo on straight, but it's also less sharp than it could and, we believe should be turning into corners.

In the Evo you think your way through bends and the nose instinctively follows suit, slicing into turns like a finely honed competition car very little physical effort is needed at the wheel itself. In the softer, less responsive Pl you approach corners as you would in a normal road car, with a degree of arm twirling vital to avoid going straight on.

Really press on and the Pl understeers earlier and more dramatically than the Evo, too. This is partly because it wears smaller front tyres - 205s versus 225s for the Mitsubishi.

However the fact that the Evo's all-wheel-drive hardware has been set up to provide a neutral handling balance under power and perhaps even deliver a smidgeon of oversteer in extremis also makes it feel more glued than the Pl, whose drivetrain hasn't been set up to perform such tricks.

What's rather more baffling than any of this is why the Pl has appeared with such relatively under-engineered brakes. As little as 10 minutes of hard use across our Welsh roads caused them to smoke and eventually fade badly which ain't what you'd expect from a car like this at all. Although they recovered quickly if left to cool for a while, the Pl's weren't a patch on the Evo's stoppers, which could stand mile after mile of abuse and still felt razor sharp at the end of it.

Not even the S4's anchors suffered as badly as the Subaru's, despite the Audi weighing 300-odd kg more than its rivals.

So it seems that despite Subaru's best efforts to usurp the mighty Mitsubishi, it hasn't happened. It's mainly the steering and brakes that let the P1 down, but there's also something else, the lack of a raw edge perhaps, that separates it from true greatness, namely the EvoVI.

Not that it isn't good enough to give the S4 a good hiding. If the Audi was invited along to test the refinement of the Subaru it didn't do a very good job of it. Then again, the S4 is not a very good car quite frankly, and in this company it's not even all that quick.

which means the Evo continues to rule, continues to shock and excite us in equal measure every time we drive it. Have we had enough of it yet? Have we heck.

Autocar 5th April 2000

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