Subaru WRX GD

This is the one that brought the party to America. In 2002 the bugeye WRX finally landed stateside with a 227-horsepower EJ205, and enthusiasts who'd only read about Imprezas in import magazines suddenly had one at the local dealer. Two years later the STI arrived to finish the job: a 2.5-liter EJ257 making 300 horsepower, gold BBS wheels, a driver-controlled center diff, and a rear wing you could serve dinner on.

The GD ran through three faces that owners still argue about. The bugeye (2002-2003), the blobeye (2004-2005), and the hawkeye (2006-2007), each with its own devoted camp. All of them share the burbling boxer soundtrack and a chassis that shrinks around you on a wet back road.

As a warning to all shoppers: the EJ257 will happily grenade itself if it's been leaned out by an amateur tuner, so don't buy before you get a PPI, a compression test and a clean maintenance log. Find a stock, unbroken STI and you've got the car that defined a generation of rally-bred sedans.