A wise man once said to never rest on your laurels. Mistakenly satisfied with its past successes, Subaru messed up the WRX in ways that will alienate diehards. Case in point: the unassuming Elantra N, which is affordable by a few grand, is quicker on the Edmunds U-Drags course.
Redesigned on the Impreza’s aging platform for the 2022 model year, the WRX has leveled up to a 2.4-liter turbo with 271 horsepower and 258 pound-feet (350 Nm) of torque on deck. That may be fine at first glance, but on the dyno, the World Rally eXperimental actually makes 20 pound-feet (27 Nm) less torque at the wheels compared to its 2.0-liter forerunner.
Oh dear! The bad news doesn’t stop here, though. The range-topping GT trim level is the biggest issue of the WRX because it comes exclusively with a continuously variable transmission marketed as the Subaru Performance Transmission. Oh, and by the way, the STI has been ruled out by Subaru.
Adding insult to injury, the all-wheel-drive WRX loses the U-drag showdown against a front-wheel-drive challenger from a company that doesn’t have a sporting heritage. There are, however, a few reasons for this woeful result, starting with the porkiness. Edmunds weighed this fellow at 3,400 pounds (1,542 kilograms) while the Elantra N tips the scales at 3,196 pounds (1,450 kilograms), representing a huge advantage for the Hyundai.
Also worthy of note, the 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder mill of the South Korean alternative is more powerful (276 ponies) and torquier (289 pound-feet or 392 Nm) as well. When fitted with the wet-clutch DCT, the Elantra N can temporarily increase the boost pressure to produce 286 horsepower.
The U-Drags course weeds out the pretenders from the contenders by combining acceleration with braking and handling. According to vehicle test editor Kurt Niebuhr, the Elantra N“was just better. The launch was better, the clutch felt better, transmission felt better, the steering felt better, power felt better, and it won.” Vehicle test editor Reese Counts, on the other hand, singles out “the steering and the turn in” of the South Korean sedan.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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