Subaru’s hot-and-hotter duo get a nip and tuck for the new year.
Going live on their North American website, Subaru has lifted the veil off of its revised WRX and WRX STI performance saloons, showing the world sharper styling and better specifications aimed to make the duo a little easier to live with day-to-day.
The update rolled out this week are expected to last the rest of the car’s lifecycle, until the replacement cars based on the new Impreza roll in in 2020, built on Subaru’s fresh new Global Platform architecture. Although the update went live on the North American website, the updates seen here should be employed throughout the world, Australia included.
The WRX sees a little fettling done to the suspension system to improve both ride comfort and agility, while the manual models gain new gear synchronisers to ensure smoother progressions. The power steering has also been revised slightly to make for an “even smoother, more natural feel,” something that some quarters complained about in the outgoing model.
The hotter STI models see changes to its Driver Control Centre Differential, which mostly change the previous mechanical-and-electronic limited slip differential (LSD) unit to a purely electronic one, which the company claims to over improvements to response and linearity. The STI also gains six-pot Brembo brake callipers on the front wheels (finished in yellow, no less), while the rear stoppers get two-pot units from Brembo too.
Noise, vibration, and harshness levels have been reduced in the cabin with the inclusion of thicker glass in the doors, foam filling in the windshield header beam, and revised door seals. This should address one of the biggest bugbears of the WRX and the STi. The interior sees revisions to include a bigger multi-function display, redesigned door grips, and overall improvement in employed finishing materials. And for the impatient, the remote boot release function now takes less time to activate.
In America, enthusiasts of hot Scoobies will have the option of selecting a ‘Performance Package,’ which throws in red brake callipers and stronger pads, power-adjustable Recaro bucket seats, and removes the moon roof in the WRX in the name of rigidity and weight-saving. American-market WRXs also gain Subaru’s EyeSight active safety suite, which will likely be omitted from Aussie cars.
Mechanically, nothing has changed. The 2.0-litre in the WRX continues to produce 197kW, while the 2.5-litre unit in the STI manages 221kW of twist.
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