Q-Tower and Fat Cat 6 on a Subaru Impreza

This week we had the chance to rack up not just one but two Subaru Imprezas. The first was a 2006 Subaru Impreza WRX Wagon and the other was a 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX Sedan. In this case both of our customers wanted to carry skis and snowboards on the roof of their car and actually ended up purchasing the exact same rack system making them rack twins! Just imagine these two guys rolling up to a traffic light and giving each other the head nod! They know whats up!

Yakima makes a very solid roof rack system for the Impreza which clips in just above the windows. We used the Yakima Q-Tower base system with two pairs of Q78 Q-Clips, 48” Yakima Roundbars, a 4-Pack of SKS Lock Cores, and a Fat Cat 6 Black. We also installed a 44” Fairing on the Impreza Wagon which is a great way to reduce the potential wind noise that can occur with some bar types and doubles as a great place to put stickers you amass on your travels!

Roof Rack Systems always start with a base rack system, in this case the Q-Towers, and then accessories are added based on what you would like to carry such as skis, bikes, cargo, or kayaks. The Q-Tower is designed to work on vehicles without existing roof rails or factory fixed point mounting systems. In the case of the Subaru Impreza Wagon it works even with the siderails on the vehicle but this is an uncommon solution on many other vehicles with existing side-rails. The Q-Tower uses vehicle specific clips which are designed and tested to fit certain vehicles. You can see in the picture below how the Q78 is designed to fit this vehicle perfectly.

The Q in Q-Tower stands for Quadruple movement in the tower and clip allowing it to be very versatile and fit vehicles with different roof designs. Yakima provides dimensions as to where to mount the towers on the bars and where the bars are placed on the vehicle. These measurements are very important to follow if you are installing this roof rack yourself. We offer professional installation done by trained installers who can take care of this for you if you are not comfortable or unable to do this yourself.

Once the roof bars have been installed properly you can now start to mount the accessories. We mounted the Wind Deflector first so that we could get it centered on the front bar. On some vehicles a roundbar system will cause air noise which can be annoying at highway speeds. A fairing can solve this problem or you could look at the Yakima Whispbar Rack Systems.

The step is to mount the ski and snowboard carrier. The Yakima Fat Cat 6 Black includes two types of hardware: Round Mount Hardware to fit Yakima Roundbars and a Universal Mounting Hardware to fit factory roof racks, Yakima Whispbar, and Thule bar systems. The Fat Cat 6 Black can carry up to 6 pairs of skis or up to 4 snowboards. It features a dual hinge system which makes sure the ski rack closes properly and holds your skis and snowboards in place. The large push button allows open the ski and snowboard carrier easy even with big warm mitts on! Also included is an integrated binding lift just in case your roof rack is close to your roof and causes your bindings to make contact with the paint. Not a good thing! The Yakima Fat Cats are also the sleekest looking ski and snowboard carriers around so you can roll up to the ski hill in style.

Here is a look of how the rack looked on the 4 door Imprezza as well.

If you are looking for more information on which Yakima Roof Rack is best for you don’t hesitate to contact either of our two Edmonton Racks For Cars locations.

To determine which Yakima Rack System or Ski and Snowboard Rack will fit your vehicle please use the Yakima Fit Guide.

If you would like to get your vehicle set up with a rack system but don’t live in Edmonton don’t fret! We offer Free Shipping on most orders over $150 across Canada!