Subaru WRX GC 22B STI

If the GC generation has a crown jewel, this is it. Built in 1998 to mark Subaru's 40th anniversary and its third straight World Rally manufacturers' title, the 22B took the two-door Impreza, flared its arches into a menacing widebody, and dropped in a bored-out 2.2-liter EJ22 where lesser cars made do with 2.0. Official output was the gentlemen's-agreement 280 PS, though everyone who has driven one suspects the real figure sits north of 300.

Subaru built 400 for Japan and they reportedly sold out in under two days, with a small run of export cars bringing the total to roughly 424. That scarcity, plus the rally pedigree and the fact that it's simply the most beautiful Impreza ever made, has pushed 22B values into six figures and kept them there.

The earliest examples have only just cleared the US 25-year import wall, so clean, documented cars are starting to surface here for the first time. This is a bucket-list car, the kind you buy once and never quite believe is parked in your garage.