Two years ago, when rumor had turned into fact, that Subaru was really going to box and ship its WRX over to the States, we here at Super Street wondered what the world would be like with the WRX in America. Although we had been wishing for it for years, the thought of having the bonafide turbocharged, all-wheel-drive, ass-hauling, mud-slinging, pants-wetting (in a good sense of the word) thing at the dealership was beyond our wildest dreams. We had been getting Japan's sloppy seconds for so long that it felt kind of wrong, like crossing a line that maybe wasn't meant to be crossed, like Fletch Lives or Dollyworld.
But things, of course, have been, as they say down in the LBC, aalll gooood. WRX is selling through the roof, STi has become a household word, Mitsubishi is releasing the new Evo VIII in America, Nissan has the 350Z, and Mazda is turbocharging cars again. Now, all they have to do is make a movie starring all the honies from The Real World: Las Vegas for Skinamax and we'll be all set.
What all this WRX madness has also done is spawn a new breed of tuner, the WRX junkie. Yeah, yeah, yeah-Subaru has always had its owners clubs and its disciples, but they were mostly rally geeks and British ex-pats. They had to have been in order to work with one of the weakest 2.0L motors on the planet and expensive turbo kits that only people with real jobs could afford. But now with the WRX, things are different. Its turbo, handling, and toughness have found a brand-new audience, and it's even more devoted than its predecessors. Brian Patanjo of Medford, New York, located out in the middle of Long Island, is one these junkies.
Brian was playing the guitar in the Air Force band when he first came across a WRX. "I was in Japan and a guy gave me a ride in a '98 STi, and after that I was like, 'I gotta get one of these,'" he says. "I came back [to America] in 1999 and they didn't make it here. So, I waited for like two years. I ordered it and then had to wait six months for my car."
Even though Brian grew up around cars-he helped his dad build Chevys and trucks, and even had his own Fiero GT that he modified when he was 19-it took some time for him to find the right setup with the WRX. "It's so brand-new you don't know who's done what and how and what happened," he says. "Like what's the best setup, figuring out the best intercooler or turbo to go with. I wanted something that would give me fast quarter-mile times, low-end speed from 0-90. I went with the IHI VF34 [turbo upgrade] because it's a ball-bearing turbo, so it spools up faster and you can get off the line a little quicker. And the GReddy front-mount is one of the best out right now. Of course, I call Alan and the SQC guys almost every day asking them what to get and when to get it. They're nice guys so I usually stick with Alan and Willie."
By Alan and Willie, Brian means Alan Lew and Willie Yap (whose car, by the way, is the WRX equivalent of Dolph Lundgren). They are two of the three founding members of Subaru Queens Crew out of New York City, and together, they've gone through nearly every engine configuration possible short of Group N, pioneering the good and the bad for the rest of the team (and anyone who appears on the www.sqc-ny.com message board). Brian is SQC member number 17 and his car has essentially the same setup as Willie's, only with a smaller turbo (well, smaller in the sense that Jack Black has smaller man-boobs than Jonny) and without a Link computer (though the day after the shoot, Brian dropped off his car at the Performance Factory to get that installed).