What to make of the Subaru WRX tS? I spent about a week staring at it through the living room window, pondering that question without reaching a satisfactory answer.
It’s a funny car, expensive enough that it should have an STI badge on the back, but just good enough to smooth over an uncomfortable truth: We’re (probably) not getting another STI. Ever. And I include "probably" in that sentence out of some notion of journalistic propriety, not because I think there’s a snowball’s chance.
We all know the score. Subaru feels no need to overhaul the WRX when the competition from Ford and Mitsubishi folded long ago. Plus, they seem to sell enough that the ends justify the means. When the bills come due, Subaru can tack fender flares, knobby tires, and four figures onto any other model in the portfolio and cash in. Meanwhile, the WRX till goes brrrrrrr, slowly and surely, in the background.
That doesn’t make the base WRX a bad car or even a cynical one. Quite the opposite. I think there’s a fundamental decency paired to its simplicity. It has a big interior, solid performance, and a six-speed stick in the middle. Plus, it’s quiet enough, comfortable enough, and doesn’t get over its own skis with in-car tech.
If you’re in the market for an affordable all-wheel-drive sedan with sporting intentions and an infinite aftermarket, there’s your huckleberry. But if you’re like me, you still yearn for a bit more from the factory WRX.
Enter the tS. It’s a $47,705 version of the WRX equipped with gold Brembos, adjustable dampers, 19-inch wheels shod in 245-section tires, plus some sporty Recaros and a slicktop roof. These are the types of upgrades you used to find on a WRX STI.
My biggest complaint: The tS does little to punch up the WRX’s dowdy exterior. Just look at it.
It’s still ugly, a piecemeal cavalcade of blunted angles and dull plastic cladding. Only a pug mother could love its face. But at least the tS still looks athletic in profile, and if ugly-but-sporty hasn’t always been the WRX’s calling card, then I don’t know what is.
As a Seattleite, I kinda love the anti-fashion of the thing. Always have. Perhaps that’s why WRXs have historically sold so well in America’s upper-left. They suit the landscape better than any other sport compact, but really, they fit the people better, too. Birkenstocks, thick wool socks, and all.
So what do the tS’s changes amount to, besides an astonishing $10,000 over the WRX’s entry point? Well, it’s both a lot and a little. Mechanically, it’s nothing serious. No bespoke STI differentials, no special nozzle for spritzing the intercooler, no wing blocking half your view out the rear window and encouraging you to left-right Scandi flick your WRX through the Arby’s drive-thru.
On the other hand, this is without question the finest-driving WRX of its generation, sharper and better polished than the standard ‘Rex without giving up an ounce of the daily driver comfort that makes it so appealing.
Thanks to all the touches included in the tS’s price tag, especially the blue trimmed Recaros, it even feels more special than your average WRX. (Instead of swimming in a Sarlaac pit of unremarkable black plastic, there are a few slashes of blue microsuede breaking up the interior, which make all the difference).
The gold calipers and a set of tS-specific wheels increase the bling factor too. Rally Blue Pearl paint doesn’t hurt either. It recalls the good old days, McRae hanging a wheel into every mid-apex ditch, Solberg at maximum attack in Monaco.
But the truth is those old STIs weren’t the rally-cars-for-the-road we remember them to be, even if they looked the part. In my experience, stock STIs always needed the aftermarket. Namely, an exhaust, a tune, the right tires, the right alignment, and a bit of fiddling with the rear bar/suspension to ease rotation.
When set up correctly, STIs were kings of the autocross classes I raced in for more than a decade. Stock cars were simply cannon fodder.
So what do the tS’s changes amount to, besides an astonishing $10,000 over the WRX’s entry point? Well, it’s both a lot and a little.
Even as pure road cars—or perhaps especially as road cars—a stock STI never paid back its driver in full. It traded away some of the WRX’s civility, but never for divine steering feel, a hyper-sharp nose at turn-in, or the ability to steer with the throttle on corner exit. That all fell under the Evo’s purview; it’s always been the better driving tool.
Long after Evo had dropped dead, the STI still lost out to its contemporaries. At Autodrome Saint-Eustache, a race track near Montreal, I once pitted the brand-new FK8 Civic Type R against the then-ancient 370Z and a rally-blue WRX STI.
After a day or two chasing down some of Canada’s most picturesque backroads, we drove the trio head-to-head in the pouring rain at Saint-Eustache, and then, when the sun finally poked out from the clouds, during back-to-back sessions on a rapidly drying track.
Bah gawd that’s Subaru’s music!
Instead, the STI lapped far slower than the Civic Type R in both the wet and dry. The STI ran neck and neck with the 370Z on the timesheet, but the Nissan offered better handling balance and superior adjustability. Plus, I never failed to step out of the Z with a grin.
That’s where Subaru left the STI nameplate; A vehicle still brimming with character but lagging far behind its rivals in performance per dollar.
It’s why the WRX has always made that much more sense to me. Historically, it offered better value than the STI, was usually as quick (or quicker) in a straight line, and then there was the vast aftermarket, always there to bridge the talent gap between models.
The uncomfortable truth is that the tS is a better fit for 2025 than an STI. It sharpens the WRX formula without magnifying any of its deficiencies. And with our current financial reality, you’d imagine a modern STI—a low-volume product with the bespoke diffs, better cooling, engine goodies, and a crazy wing—would push close to sixty grand. If Nismo Z sales are an indicator, that’s not a popular price point for the descendant of an import-tuner icon.
So, what to make of the WRX tS? I guess I’m still not quite sure. But I’m definitely happy it’s here.
