Subaru Impreza vs Mini 5D Hatch

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.

That the 2020 Mini Clubman John Cooper Works is the most powerful Mini to have landed in Australia isn’t all that surprising. After all, parent company BMW has squeezed the thumping four-cylinder engine from the M135i under its bonnet, and that thing creates a snarling beast of any vehicle it finds a home in.

What is a surprise, though, is that having now driven this angry, crackling, snarling hot hatch, what with its burbling exhaust and properly rapid acceleration, is that it took Mini this long to get around to doing it.

So does the engine upgrade now put the Clubman JCW on the same pedestal as the best European hot hatches?  There's only one way to find out.