Feature: Tangerine Queen (Part I)

Owner: Sara
Car: 2013 Subaru WRX Special Edition
Instagram: @boostedsweetheart

Sara’s 2013 Subaru WRX is one of 200 Special Edition WRX‘s made in Tangerine Orange. It is a very striking color and is hard to miss. On paper, this color is appalling. I could never find myself owning an orange car. And yet in person I would love to have a Tangerine Orange WRX/STi. Other than World Rally Blue it’s one of my favorite colors to shoot.

I originally shot the Tangerine Queen back in January 2016. I am revisiting this set after I felt like I improved my Lightroom editing techniques, or changed my style, whichever works.

Mods include Enkei Raijin 18×9.5 wheels with 265/35/18R Nitto NT555 tires, custom headlights retrofit (by Sam C.), front lip, custom rear diffuser (not pictured), and later on an Invidia Q300 Catback Exhaust (also not pictured).

Other than the exterior mods the Tangerine Queen’s EJ255 is stock. No tune, no mods, bone stock. Which is pretty impressive in my book. My 2009 WRX stayed stock for all of 5k miles after I swore I wouldn’t mod it. Even got the extended warranty for good measure. Some 80k miles later I removed a pile of aftermarket parts of TMICs, ELHs, and Brembos as I prepared to sell it to a new owner.

The widebody 2011-14 Subaru WRX is one of my favorite Subie body styles. In fact it’s the main reason I sold my 2009 WRX in search of a widebody hatch. The “chipmunk” fenders flare out wide and aggressive enough to fit 18×10 wheels and 275 tires. Which is pretty insane for a compact sedan. Obviously fender work, wheel offset, and camber settings all need to be taken into account with such a meaty setup.

Coupled with Subaru’s AWD system 275mm wide tires should provide an epic amount of grip around East Tennessee’s back roads. Sara’s WRX is running 265mm shoes which provide plenty of grip during our spirited driving around some local back roads.

I wish I could remember all of the roads we drove in between shoots but I generally just play follow-the-leader with Jeff B. and his BMW M235i (former STi owner). He knows all of the back roads in this region better than anyone I know. We can often spend over 4hrs of just non-stop twisty mountain road driving, occasionally crossing a couple of state lines in the process.

On this day we stuck to the surrounding counties of Knoxville. We did make it up to Frozen Head State Park only to bail shortly after arriving after a park ranger chased us down to warn us about our speeding. I suppose a couple of Subies tailing a Bimmer constitutes speeding. I think he just heard me downshift (the loudest of the bunch) to slow down and obey said speed limit and made up his mind to take action. Not wanting any more problems I snapped the pic below and we left.

We made our way to Oliver Springs before calling it a day. As luck would have it a train blessed us with its presence. Unfortunately I had my ISO set to auto and didn’t capture it in motion. 😦