Reborn Subaru WRX STI High-Performance Sedan Lives On, Albeit Only Virtually

Instead of CES 2024 in Las Vegas, they are hitting the premises of the Tokyo Auto Salon 2024 with special stuff that won't come to America – a Levorg with STI goodies, a BRZ STI Sport decked with additional Subaru Tecnica International perks, and last but not least a WRX S4 STI Sport treated with a hotter version. Unfortunately, none of them will be available in the United States anytime soon.

That is even as Subaru noticed an excellent uptick in sales in America over the course of last year – they had 13.6% better deliveries than during the same period of 2022. In fact, the next best thing you can have from the Japanese automaker in terms of high-performance all-terrain sedans is the fresh TR version that retails for an astonishing $41,655 – which makes it a lot more expensive than the last WRX STI and not that great, mainly because it's not more powerful and still looks like a boring sedan when it should be a celebration of what made the WRX series so quirky that it attracted a very young audience.

Anyway, suppose Subaru is not giving people what they want in the real world. In that case, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators is always ready to try and rectify the misdoings. For example, PoloTo is a distinctively-named automotive news video channel on YouTube - and they also share visions of new models created with (some) assistance from AI, such as this utterly unofficial unveiling of the 2025 Subaru WRX STI!

Looking a lot less 'mature' than the current Subaru WRX or WRX TR from the real world, this hypothetical WRX STI casually returns to America from the parallel universes of vehicular CGI with the blissful ignorance of a vehicle that doesn't know that everything is now about crossovers, SUVs, and trucks or that both Subaru and Mitsubishi have abandoned the WRX STI and Lancer Evolution way of life.

So, would you like to see this high-performance on the street, complete with its massive aerodynamic kit, widebody components, stiffer suspension setup, sportier symmetrical AWD setup, and the classic blue livery adorned with carbon fiber parts plus darker gold wheels? Or are we past the moment when rally-inspired cars were also good for the streets?

Anyway, as far as Subaru is concerned, they're well established for the 2024 model year, and the only 2023MY still up for grabs is the $45k Solterra all-electric sibling of the Toyota bZ4X. In fact, they also have a 2025 model year, the sixth generation Forester compact crossover SUV that's coming to the market in spring.