This is my favorite photo of my STI, capturing it at its peak. This car is so satisfying on so many levels and, being my first car, it has a ton of sentimental value for me.

I think I still see it for what it was during my high school and college years. It was a helluva car to have during my youth, and I literally got to live out that dream of being the young guy with the fast car. And quite fast it was in the era before most cars had turbos, say 2006-2012ish.

My car with light mods and tuning had around 400hp, and performed a little better than an Audi RS4 at the time (lighter, better handling, more torque, more usable power). Sure there were plenty of faster cars out there, but I was faster than most of the common stuff, 4.6 Mustangs, 4.2 S4s, 350/370Zs, GTOs, and E46 M3s were not fucking with me. Even lightly modded Evos would fall back on a top end pull. And the races I lost, I usually hung on to some respectable stuff. I was only 1-2 car lengths behind a CTS-V Coupe at 130mph. It was real world fast, and fast enough to scare people in some pretty serious cars, Ferrari 360s, Porsche 911s, etc.

It was a crazy car in a relatively much simpler time, back when horsepower figures were only just starting to jump. Now many cars are easily this fast, either stock or with light mods. The bar has now been raised, but for six years of my youth, I was dangerous on the streets. I’m lucky and thankful that I experienced that back when I was young and dumb enough to really enjoy it. And as a bonus, I managed not to hurt anything but a few feelings along the way (especially the Mustang guys, their tears were always the sweetest 😂). Call that a win!

-Nick