Driving Sports

Our Garage: Jeff's 1959 MGA

The wonderful thing about the automotive hobby is that it can be anything you like. Check out Ryan's Legacy for an example of the new and groovy, powerful and comfortable ride. But there's also the option of working with a much older car. My 1959 MGA will have its 50th birthday next year, and it's still as fun as the day it rolled off the line in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England.

Restoring or updating an old car gets you right to the heart of what it means to be a car guy. With a classic, you can't plug in a laptop and claim 50 wheel horsepower in an afternoon. But you will get a sense of the driving experience that put sports cars into our souls. And - this is key - chicks dig old sports cars. I can park my vintage MG next to a line of the hottest tuner rides in town and which car do you think gets the attention?

Our Garage: Ryan's 2007 Legacy GT

Subaru makes some fast factory cars. Specifically, its rally-bred STI is known for a 300hp fire-breathing mill and excellent road-handling capabilities.  However, as much as I like speed, I prefer to have something a little less “racer boy” for my daily driver. I like the feel of Subaru’s boxer motors and the driver ergonomics, I also happen to run a Subaru magazine, so it only made sense that I looked elsewhere in the ‘roo family when selecting a car for my own. In the end I chose a model with styling and an interior I could live with every day: a 2007 Subaru Legacy GT.

Stock, the Legacy GT has a 243-hp (crank estimate) turbocharged motor that shares many components with the STI. Though, unlike the STI, you can get leather, a moonroof and body styling that doesn’t look like it was an afterthought. In fact, I’d say the 2007-08 Legacy is one of the better-looking cars on the road today.

Of course, given my occupation, this car didn’t stay stock long. Shortly after break-in we started the first phase of changes in the “need for speed” category. This included a larger turbo, fatter top-mount intercooler and a Perrin turbo-back exhaust system.  All the parts were tuned using an ECUTek reflash and netted a tidy 280hp at the wheels

I ran that config for a good year and was pretty happy with the overall performance: the 18G Blouch/TDC Turbo spooled fast and had enough scoot for the occasional track day or Time Attack race. The Achilles heel was the top end. Power came fast, but didn’t stick around, making long straight-aways on the track my nemesis. Also, in hot conditions, such as I faced at the 2007 Tuner Shootout in Nevada, the top-mount intercooler just couldn’t keep temperatures at bay.