Today is another sad news for JDM fans and Subaru fans, on March 11, Subaru North America suddenly issued a press release, due to the market environment and environmental regulations and other requirements, the statement will not continue to develop subaru WRX STI on the existing WRX platform, but may consider the launch of pure electrified STI models in the future. Like the EVO of that year, a few simple words took away an era.
The root cause, of course, is that, like many high-performance, high-displacement models that have been discontinued or are about to be discontinued, are due to the transition to electrification in the automotive market and the increasingly stringent emissions and fuel consumption regulations in all regions of the world. Subaru had to consider stopping updating the classic Japanese performance car in the field of internal combustion engines, and Subaru said that engineers have made great efforts to seek a breakthrough in the technical level, but in the end did not allow the WRX STI to go on.
At the 2022 Tokyo Modified Auto Show, which opened on January 14, Subaru brought the WRX S4 STI performance concept car and thought it would continue to launch the new 2022 WRX STI on top of it, but unfortunately all this came to an abrupt end today. Previously, there were many rumors of the next generation of Subaru WRX STI. For example, in July last year, foreign media said that the next generation of WRX STI horsepower will reach 257 kilowatts, the news made foreign fans extremely look forward to, and now it seems that this is just a rumor.
If you think back to the history of WRX STI, you may notice that different articles are written in case-sensitive English. In fact, STI' full name is SUBARU TECNICA INTERNATIONAL, literally translated as Subaru International Technical Department, which was established in Tokyo, Japan on April 2, 1988. The English abbreviation of "STi" was officially changed to "STI" in all capitals after April 2005, but the logo logo is still the traditional "STi".
According to the data, in 1990, the founder of STI, Ryūichiro, personally led the team to cooperate with the British Prodrive Racing Company to officially enter the WRC. At that time, Subaru's participating model was The Lions RS, but because of the weight of the body, and the lack of maturity in the overall mechanical structure of the Division, Subaru almost did not get any returns on the field. Completely unable to compete with the automakers such as Lancia and Ford at that time, Subaru desperately needed a car to fill the small and medium-sized market, and with the change of WRC race specifications, Subaru's opportunity finally came.
At that time, WRC events required that all participating vehicles must have a production model and could only be modified on the basis of the production model. Subaru saw the timing and set about developing a new Impreza series. In September 1992, just over two months after Mitsubishi released the EVO, the Subaru Impreza series was born. However, at that time, Subaru only transplanted the 1.5-liter engine to catch up, so most Subaru fans did not recognize that this "family sedan" without any fun belonged to the Impreza series.
After a short test and a few games, subaru engineers finally wondered if they could do it, and sooner or later it would be yellow. In November of the same year, Subaru officially brought the new Impreza WRX model, as can be seen from the name of the car, this car was specially created to win the WRC. Subaru's engineers removed the engine code-named EJ20 from the engine compartment of the Lishi who had competed in the arena.
At the moment when it was combined with the impreza, the impreza series in the hearts of Subaru fans was truly born. The turbocharged engine is designed in a horizontally opposed design with a maximum power of 240 hp and a maximum torque of 303 Nm. Subaru's secret weapon, the original Impreza WRX STI, was officially born in January 1994, and the car made a number of improvements to the handling performance and power, such as reinforced pistons, special engine compartment levers, etc., and the maximum power output rose to 250 horsepower, and the torque also reached 308 Nm.
As mentioned earlier, all participating vehicles must be sold in production to qualify for the competition, and as a result, Subaru really launched the civilian version of the Impreza WRX Type-RA STI developed by WRC racing cars. The production model with a modified EJ20G/C engine has a further increase in power to 275 hp and a maximum torque of 318 Nm, and commuting to work every day is like running a rally, not to mention how refreshing. It is worth mentioning that the type-RA suffix "R" represents Racing, and the "A" represents Group A that meets the FIA rules, because Subaru is participating in the WRC Group A event, which is really very distracting.
After 28 years of development, WRX STI is still coming to the end. Looking back at the announcement at the beginning of the article, Subaru only said that it would not produce the WRX STI for the next generation of internal combustion engines, but did not rule out that it would restart the WRX STI in other energy sources. At the 2022 Tokyo Modification Show, the Subaru STI E-RA Concept was officially unveiled, representing Subaru's understanding and development direction for future electrification and high performance. I don't know if you can accept such an "STI", at least for me, it seems that the "STI" has become out of reach, of course, I also know that it is just a concept car, but it also gives me a very strange feeling.
Although the sudden announcement of Subaru was a bit unexpected, but as I know Subaru, he generally does not directly cut off a classic project, but immediately switched into the era of electrification, they should also launch high-performance internal combustion engine models to fill the gap in the market. As for who it is? The closest guess now is the BRZ STI high-performance version, which is likely to be a replacement for the BRZ tS STI launched in Japan in 2015. So have you ever owned, or dreamed of owning, a WRX STI?