As if infused with a new enthusiasm for performance motoring after the successes of the Subaru BRZ, Subaru has revealed an all-new concept at the New York Auto Show. Called the ‘all-new performance concept car’, this is the car that undoubtedly previews the next-generation WRX STI.
Subaru has been looking for a long time to truly differentiate the WRX STI from its pedestrian Impreza underpinnings and it is finally beginning to show. The turbocharged car no longer looks like an econobox with a racy front fascia and a giant rear wing.
The WRX STI Concept has a sculpted and more prominent, trapezoidal grille with black mesh, a typically large air scoop and eye-catching LED covered hawk-eye headlights. Subaru say the roof is made from carbon fibre to shave weight and lower the car’s all-important centre of gravity of the car.
Behind the front wheels is an aerodynamic crease that traces back through the front doors and almost completely through the rears, where it meets the flared rear wheel arches. At the back, the boot doesn’t feature a gigantic rear wing, instead, Subaru integrated a lip spoiler, which curves into the rear quarter panels, where it meets the two thin LED taillights. The quad exhaust system has a fluorescent yellow finish which may or may not be a bit OTT.
The colour in question does at least match the yellow brake calipers and WRX badging shod all over the car, which contrasts against the signature WRC Blue Pearl III paint job. As it stands in concept form, the WRX STI rides on 20-inch BBS forged wheels covered by bespoke Dunlop rubber.
For the moment there are no details about what’s hiding under the bonnet, but you don’t need to be an emeritus professor of applied sciences to know it will be horizontally opposed and turbocharged. We’d bet on a version of the FA20 2.0-litre horizontally opposed 4-cylinder, but there’s no official word at this point.
