Fancy duds for Subaru WRX
This model gets a total, timely makeover for the new year
SANTA ROSA, California — An old stagecoach trail running through Mendocino County called Mountain View Road is hell. Its blind, narrow, asphalt path is pocked with patches and neglect. It snakes below a canopy of redwood trees, the perpetually damp surface iced with pine needles making the road surface even more challenging.
My 2022 Subaru WRX tester was in heaven.
Rally bred, the WRX (short for World Rally Cross) cut across the challenging terrain like Barry Sanders through a defensive line. Stiffly damped, its suspension absorbed road irregularities. Barreling into a tight series of S turns, I flicked the stick into second, then blasted out of the corner — the all-wheeldrive system propelled by 271 ponies.
A road that would be a nightmare in the average family SUV turns into a grin-inducing playground at the wheel of the WRX.
The swift Subie is the latest remade entry in my favorite automotive segment: pocket rockets. These talented hellions will happily do daily chores all week, then gleefully devour country roads on the weekend. It’s a segment apparently sheltered from the SUV revolution — so passionate is its fan base (guilty as charged), so capable are the players.
Each athlete brings a unique skill set to the arena, with the Subaru flaunting manual-shifting, all-wheeldrive DNA born of some of the toughest rally-racing terrain in the world. Mountain View Road? Ha, have you seen Motu Road Gorge in New Zealand? Like the Volkswagen Golf GTI, WRX is a segment icon.
And like the GTI, the ’Ru got a total makeover for the new model year.
The remake is timely given the all-out assault by its competitive set on the market. Notably, WRX has been challenged by the Mazda3 Turbo as the only segment competitor offering AWD — a boon to those of us living in snow country.
The Mazda has set segment benchmarks for looks and interior panache. Its gorgeous tablet-topped dash and hatchback utility make it a formidable rival.
Subie answers with its most daring exterior style ever, its boomerang headlights bracketing the familiar hexagonal grille while also emphasizing the compact car’s wider stance compared with the standard Impreza compact car. Indeed, while WRX shares the Global Platform that undergirds Impreza, the WRX has divorced itself from its underpowered sibling and adopting its own unique body panels. The blistered rear fenders and huge quad-pipe-engorged rear diffuser instantly send a message as you come upon a WRX: Do you know who you are tangling with?
More controversial are blocky black fender claddings that echo other, more-off-road oriented Subaru Wilderness models. The cladding is unusual. But given WRX’s rally focus and liberal use of black makeup, the styling works remarkably well.
Inside, the ’Ru brings a trendy new 11.6-inch center screen copied from its Outback and Legacy siblings. The touch screen (complete with Apple Car-Play and Android Auto connectivity) is easier to use than the Mazda’s sometimes quirky remote rotary controller.
Style marks go to the automatic-shifting Mazda, but the Subaru is intensely performance driven, starting with a tight six-speed shifter.
Plunging through the redwoods, I never missed a shift. The throws are short, the pedals conveniently placed for heel-and-toe downshifts, even for my size 15s. The arrangement is better than the Golf GTI’s stick, if not on par with the Honda Civic Si’s terrific shifter — one of the best I’ve experienced this side of a Porsche.
With a quieter cabin that the last gen, the WRX engine feels curiously removed from otherwise pulse-pounding performance. Take the AWD system, for example.
While the Si and GTI bring superb front-wheeldrive, limited-slip differentials that help rotate them through the twisties, the ’Ru goes all out with a rear-wheel-biased, longitudinally mounted low-center-of-gravity Boxer engine that feeds all that power to all four wheels all the time. You know, like an Audi.
Adding nearly another half-liter to last gen’s 2.0-liter engine, the Subie pulls hard. Past quibbles about turbo-lag are forgotten. As I overcooked it into a mountain switchback, the rear end came around nicely as I applied throttle.
So proud is Subaru of its AWD drive grip that it provides sticky summer tires — standard — for WRX.
I’m a sucker for hatchbacks, and the Golf ’s hatch utility gives it a leg up over WRX and Si. Subarus are traditionally strong on the standard feature front, but the manual WRX oddly overlooks adaptive cruise control. ACC — especially for the young (average age 37) WRX buyer — is becoming an essential feature. Both GTI and Si offer it on their manuals.
Not overlooked is seating comfort. Over four hours of aggressive driving, my big 6-foot-5-inch frame never felt uncomfortable.
Rear legroom is admirable, too. The ’Ru has put its extra inch of wheelbase to good use, and could fit my giraffe legs easily behind myself in the back seat. But for the tight Mazda, roomy rear seating for four has become a segment staple — though your passengers may squirm when you point at the S curves ahead.
So iconic is the WRX that Subaru no longer feels the need to enter it in a high-profile race series. It exited the World Rally Championship (recording a record 46 wins) over a decade ago, and American Rallycross expired during the pandemic. The WRX is not alone in the Subaru performance lineup, sandwiched between the BRZ and the winged STI.
As engaging as the rear-wheel-dive BRZ is, however, WRX — for about the same price — shows off its value with winterfriendly AWD, comfy seating for four, deep trunk space and big-screen ergonomics.