Ultimate Street Car Challenge 02: 2002 Subaru WRX

Winning the Ultimate Street Car Challenge requires diversity, consistency and reliability. Balls-out quarter-mile times, eyeball-crushing grip and a clean-running engine will only get you so far. For a car to even stand a chance of becoming the world's Ultimate Street Car, it must finish well in all 15 very diverse contests that make up the USCC.

Sparco's Subaru WRX might have what it takes. It's a street car. A legitimate, daily-driveable street car. It also happens to make huge power, is graced with a gorgeous and useful interior package and is blessed with the beauty of all-wheel drive. Not to mention, it looks darned good.Under its stock hood, which has an unusual reversed hood scoop, are enough HKS go-fast parts to fill a small trade show. The list starts with the company's GT3037 turbocharger, wastegate and downpipe. The GT3037, for those of you that have been living somewhere in the great state of Utah, is perhaps the most sought-after 2.0-liter street turbo in existence. Known for its immediate response and ability to make huge power, this is no ordinary air pump.

A tubular HKS stainless-steel exhaust manifold helps that response, while on the intake side of the turbo are several feet of custom-fabricated XS Engineering intercooler plumbing. XS also plumbed in a huge intercooler and a custom cold-air intake. All this external hardware blows on an EJ20 beefed-up internally with Arias piston and Crower rods. HKS' stand-alone F-CON V-PRO ECU distributes fuel and spark, while the company's EVC IV controls boost.

Underneath, there's a set of painfully over- adjustable HKS Hyper Dampers, and enough sexy Cusco bars and braces to make any Japan-market meathead froth at the mouth. Cusco anti-roll bars replace the stockers front and rear. Beefing up the Subaru's already-rigid platform are a Cusco strut tower bar and a trunk-mounted brace, which triangulates the WRX's rear strut towers.Cusco's clutch, pressure plate and flywheel lighten and strengthen the drivetrain. Power hits the ground through 225/40-17 Kumho Victoracers on 17x7-inch Axis VPDs or 235/40ZR-18 Nitto NT555s on Prodrive P-1s.Stopping is handled in big six-piston fashion with M2 performance calipers on 13.5-inch rotors in front. In the rear, M2's four-piston setup clamps another set of 13.5-inch rotors.One would expect the interior of any car brought to life by the visionaries at Sparco to have all the right bits in the cockpit. The WRX's interior illustrates purposeful elegance and a touch of disco attitude. Sparco Milano sport seats covered in Alcantara are the most significant interior upgrade. The Sparco Mugello steering wheel, Globe-X shift knob and Grip pedal kit add tasteful character and enhance the most important car/driver interfaces. A Sparco 3-inch competition harness should keep the driver in place during the most demanding USCC performance tests. A Speedware Motorsports harness bar is in place to anchor the belts.

And then there's the in-car entertainment. We're not sure what the guys at Sparco did to end up with all the Pioneer audio and video goodies, but we'd bet it involves tattoos and G-strings. That is to say there are few very nice components sure to score big with our car show judges. With three Pioneer monitors, two amps and enough speakers to keep an entire Hot Import Nights crowd on their toes, this Suby's got the A/V goods in a big way. And to keep tabs on the engine, an HKS single-din gauge panel houses the company's boost, EGT, coolant temperature and oil temperature gauges. So the WRX has the handling and grip to keep up with the big dogs in this contest. And it certainly has the hindquarter-coddling seats and interior detail work to keep our persnickety grandma happy. However, even with all the engine mods, it's going to be chasing the leaders in the power-to-weight department. Does it have what it takes? We can't wait to find out.