WRX steps it up for fifth gen

Subaru’s new sports saloon gets feistier and more focused – but won’t come to UK

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The rally-honed Subaru WRX has been reborn for 2022 with a new platform, overhauled interior and heavily upgraded chassis – but it still uses a turbocharged boxer engine and offers a manual gearbox.

The fifth-generation WRX, which since 2015 has been marketed separately from the Impreza on which it is based, arrives three years after its predecessor was pulled from the UK. And, like its closely related BRZ sibling, it will not be sold in the UK. Subaru’s UK managing director, John Hurtig, told Autocar last year this decision was taken to allow the brand to focus on its more mainstream SUV line-up.

“[The WRX] was a performance car, a rally car,” said Hurtig. “It was a good era in UK. But it’s history. It’s a long time ago now. It has nothing really to do with the Subaru brand as it is today.”

Power comes from Subaru’s new 2.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder boxer engine – a format used by every WRX since the Mk1 of 1992. Here, it pumps a combined 271bhp and 258lb-ft (43bhp and 74lb-ft more than the BRZ’s naturally aspirated unit) to both axles.

It uses a six-speed manual gearbox or a new automatic Subaru Performance Transmission that is said to offer 30% faster upshifts and 50% faster downshifts.