For nearly five years, Subaru showrooms have gone without a somewhat berserk 300-ish-horsepower manual-only sport compact car. While the WRX regenerated, the loony-spec WRX STI Scandinavian-flicked its way towards the sunset, leaving flat-four diehards wanting for a new halo car. It really seemed like the end of an era, but a new teaser has got people’s hopes up. Something World Rally Blue with an STI badge in the grille has made its way onto Subaru Japan’s Instagram account, but before booking the reveal date of Jan. 9 off as a religious holiday, attendees of the church of Boxer might want to hold their horses.
Over in Japan, the Subaru WRX is a slightly different proposition than it is in North America. Home-market customers can order a WRX S4 STI Sport R, and that sounds great until you learn it’s only available with a continuously variable transmission. In fact, a stick-shift simply isn’t available in JDM WRXs anymore, so to every North American whinging about the unpainted plastic fender flares on the latest model, it could be worse.
However, that might be about to change. Earlier this year, Japanese media got to drive a repatriated Canadian-market WRX with a six-speed manual transmission. To make things even more interesting, this wasn’t a private import brought in by a third party, but something Subaru itself loaned out to journalists. As Best Car Web wrote, translated via Google Translate:
According to Subaru, “This is to gauge the media’s evaluation and fan reaction as we consider future products.” It appears they are also considering selling the “Performance-B STI concept,” an Impreza exhibited at JMS equipped with a 2.4-liter turbo and 6MT.
Ah yes, the Performance-B STI concept. At the Japan Mobility Show earlier this year, Subaru rolled out what was essentially the mashup of enthusiasts’ dreams, an Impreza hatchback with a wild body kit, a six-speed manual transmission, and the driver-controlled center differential from the old WRX STI. It’s hugely intriguing, but it doesn’t match up with what we’re seeing in this latest teaser.
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For once, the STI-badged WRX shown off on Instagram is a sedan, not a hatchback. In overhead shots, there’s definitely a trunk lid behind the rear window, so don’t expect a five-door revival just yet. What’s more, a brief glimpse of the rolling stock shows the same wheels used on the North American-market WRX tS. Unsurprisingly, “tS” means “Tuned by STI” in Subaru-speak, and that little nugget of information might just let us down gently.
There’s a solid chance that this new STI-badged WRX isn’t a true successor to the old full-fat EJ-powered STI, and that might be okay. If it just ends up being a stick-shift VB WRX for the Japanese market, that’s still far better than a choice of CVT or GTFO. Of course, there is a possibility that this is yet another CVT-equipped STI Sport model, but given the media drives of the manual model, perhaps this is just a case of Japan finally getting a second transmission option. While we won’t know for sure until Jan. 9, it’s probably best to temper expectations for now. On the plus side, it does sound like a more hardcore STI model is likely coming eventually, it just probably isn’t arriving next month.
Top graphic image: Subaru
Man Subaru killed their fans with the latest WRX. I have seen so few of them. They must be selling terrible.
I’m in the PNW and see a few of them up here, but when I was in Texas prior to the move there were none anywhere.
It’ll be tS for them!
I’m pretty sure “tS” actually stands for, um, “don’t hold your breath.”
We need the old wagon STI back so people can tell their spouses “Look honey, it is a manual for efficiency and a practical wagon for the kids and dog.”
This is funny but also 95% accurate to my own situation.
The only expectation vs reality gap worse than Subaru reliability is Subaru concepts vs production vehicles.