New Impreza on sale in Japan but no more WRX

Subaru’s new Impreza range is now on sale in Japan and there are one or two odd little things to note aside from the woeful styling which we have shown you before.

The first issue concerns the name of the new turbo-charged Impreza. No longer can the Japanese refer to it as the ‘Rex’ as the WRX moniker has been dropped in favour of S-GT…huh? Subaru apparently describe the new WRX replacement as a ‘Grand Touring’ model. HSV’s and FPV’s are grand tourers not high strung Japanese 4-cylinders. Subaru might be trying to lose the old WRX’s ram-raider boy racer image but we think the only thing they are losing is their minds.

We hope that Subaru are not foolish enough to introduce this name change on the Australian delivered cars but commonsense is not a Subaru strongpoint at the moment. We are quietly hopeful and note that the Impreza hatch in the picture above is clearly badged a WRX. If the US is still going to get a Rex then it makes sense that Australia will as well. Why they would want to throw away the hard won heritage of such a famous name beggars belief.

Another oddity is that the Japanese home market S-GT features a 186Kw/328Nm 2.0-litre turbo-charged boxer engine. The 2.5-litre from the previous model is not making an appearance in the home market S-GT. The 2.0-litre features ‘Dual Active Valve Control’ and equal length / constant pulsation exhaust manifolds which we assume are some form of variable valve timing and tuned length exhaust headers.

Subaru’s usual ‘symmetrical’ all-wheel drive system continues in the new model. The standard model Impreza has been released in Japan with a choice of a 1.5-litre 82Kw or 2.0-litre 104Kw engines.

The new WRX STi has not yet been released but it is expected to use the previous models 2.5-litre turbo-charged boxer four-cylinder tuned to produce in excess of 225Kw.

Source: PistonHeads