Subaru Impreza vs Kia Cerato

What's the difference?

For over thirty years, the Subaru Impreza has been an icon on Australian roads.

If you’re a member of the ‘PlayStation generation’ like me, there’s a very good chance you slapped P plates on one as your first car.

For Subaru the Impreza is more than that. Along with its WRX performance variant, it's the car which put Subaru on the map, raising it from a relatively unknown Japanese automaker to a global household name.

Things change, though, and despite 30-plus years of history as a beloved nameplate, the Impreza has gone from a best-seller to tumbling down the sales charts as buyers shuffle into small SUVs rather than hatchbacks or small sedans.

The question we’re looking to answer today is what this new-generation Impreza has to offer in 2024, and whether it is still worth a look.

Read on to see what we found.

Three years after the fourth-generation Cerato small car rolled into Australian dealerships, Kia launched a mid-life facelift for the sedan and hatch range in mid-2021.

It ushered in styling tweaks including new headlights and Kia’s new logo, as well as more safety tech and a multimedia upgrade.

At the top of the range sits the warmed-up Cerato GT. It’s not quite Hyundai i30 N-level performance, more i30 N-Line. In other words, more than enough performance to keep most people satisfied and enough poke to get away quickly at the lights.

But is the updated version of Kia’s Cerato trying to be something it’s not, or is it a performance bargain?

Read on to find out.