Payne: Subaru WRX gets fancy new duds, still wants to play hard

Posted by Talbot Payne on January 6, 2022

Santa Rosa, California — An old stagecoach trail running through Mendocino County called Mountain View Road is hell. Its blind, narrow, asphalt path is pocked with patches and neglect. It snakes below a canopy of redwood trees, the perpetually damp surface iced with pine needles making the road surface even more challenging.

My 2022 Subaru WRX tester was in heaven.

Rally bred, the WRX (short for World Rally Cross) cut across the challenging terrain like Barry Sanders through a defensive line. Stiffly damped, its suspension absorbed road irregularities. Barreling into a tight series of S turns, I flicked the stick into second, then blasted out of the corner — the all-wheel-drive system propelled by 271 ponies.

A road that would be a nightmare in the average family SUV turns into a grin-inducing playground at the wheel of the WRX.

The swift Subie is the latest remade entry in my favorite automotive segment: pocket rockets. These talented hellions will happily do daily chores all week, then gleefully devour country roads on the weekend. It’s a segment apparently sheltered from the SUV revolution — so passionate is its fanbase (guilty as charged), so capable are the players.

Each athlete brings a unique skill set to the arena, with the Subaru flaunting manual-shifting, all-wheel-drive DNA born of some of the toughest rally-racing terrain in the world. Mountain View Road? Ha, have you seen Motu Road Gorge in New Zealand? Like the Volkswagen Golf GTI, WRX is a segment icon.

And like the GTI, the ’Ru got a total makeover for the new model year.

The remake is timely given the all-out assault by its competitive set on the market. Notably, WRX has been challenged by the Mazda3 Turbo as the only segment competitor offering AWD — a boon to those of us living in snow country.

The Mazda has set segment benchmarks for looks and interior panache. Its gorgeous tablet-topped dash and hatchback utility make it a formidable rival.

Subie answers with its most daring exterior style ever, its boomerang headlights bracketing the familiar hexagonal grille while also emphasizing the compact car’s wider stance compared with the standard Impreza compact car. Indeed, while WRX shares the Global Platform that undergirds Impreza, the WRX has divorced itself (even dropping the Impreza family name!) from its underpowered sibling and adopting its own unique body panels. The blistered rear fenders and huge quad-pipe-engorged rear diffuser instantly send a message as you come upon a WRX: do you know who you are tangling with?

More controversial are blocky black fender claddings that echo other, more-off-road oriented Subaru Wilderness models. The cladding is unusual. But given WRX’s rally focus and liberal use of black makeup, the styling works remarkably well.

The cockpit of the 2022 Subaru WRX changes dramatically with an available 11.6-inch center touchscreen.

Inside, the ’Ru brings a trendy new 11.6-inch center screen copied from its Outback and Legacy siblings. The touchscreen (complete with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity) is easier to use than the Mazda’s sometimes quirky remote rotary controller, but it isn’t as driver-focused as the 3’s high-mounted tablet.

The 2022 Subaru WRX comes with a six-speed manual transmission. An auto CVT is also on offer, but the manual makes up 85% of sales for the driver-focused car.

Style marks go to the automatic-shifting Mazda, but the Subaru is intensely performance driven, starting with a tight six-speed shifter.

Plunging through the redwoods, I never missed a shift. The throws are short, the pedals conveniently placed for heel-and-toe downshifts, even for my size 15s. The arrangement is better than the Golf GTI’s stick, if not on par with the Honda Civic Si’s terrific shifter — one of the best I’ve experienced this side of a Porsche.

Unlike the GTI and SI, however, WRX is curiously emotion-less. There is no rev match on downshift, no growl, not even a SPORT drive mode selector (though the top model GT trim will get six driving modes with its automatic tranny). Odd choice that.

With a quieter cabin that the last gen, the WRX engine feels curiously removed from otherwise pulse-pounding performance. Take the AWD system, for example.

While the Si and GTI bring superb front-wheel-drive, limited-slip differentials that help rotate them through the twisties, the ’Ru goes all out with a rear-wheel-biased, longitudinally mounted low-center-of-gravity Boxer engine that feeds all that power to all four wheels all the time. You know, like an Audi.

Adding nearly another half-liter to last gen’s 2.0-liter engine, the Subie pulls hard. Past quibbles about turbo-lag are forgotten. As I overcooked it into a mountain switchback, the rear end came around nicely as I applied throttle.

The 2022 Subaru WRX gains displacement with a 2.4-liter turbo-4 engine. But output remains the same as last gen with 271 horsepower and 258 pound feet of torque.

So proud is Subaru of its AWD drive grip that it provides sticky summer tires — standard — for WRX.

I’m a sucker for hatchbacks, and the Golf’s hatch utility gives it a leg up over WRX and Si. Subarus are traditionally strong on the standard feature front, but the manual WRX oddly overlooks adaptive cruise control (reserving it for the automatic, even though manuals make up 85% of WRX’s sales volume). ACC — especially for the young (average age 37) WRX buyer — is becoming an essential feature. Both GTI and Si offer it on their manuals.

Not overlooked is seating comfort. Over four hours of aggressive driving, my big 6’5” frame never felt uncomfortable.

The WRX’s new thrones have been extensively reworked, and my Premium trim’s (the meat of WRX sales) cloth seats were as comfortable as if they had been leather while keeping me in place though the curves.

The base WRX starts at $28,315 and goes up in price across Premium, Limited, and GT model lines that offer leather seats, moonroof, big screen, auto transmission, and other goodies. Fun and AWD are standard.

Rear legroom is admirable, too. The ’Ru has put its extra inch of wheelbase to good use, and could fit my giraffe legs easily behind myself in the backseat. But for the tight Mazda, roomy rear seating for four has become a segment staple — though your passengers may squirm when you point at the S curves ahead.

So iconic is the WRX that Subaru no longer feels the need to enter it in a high-profile race series. It exited the World Rally Championship (recording a record 46 wins) over a decade ago, and American Rallycross expired during the pandemic. The WRX is not alone in the Subaru performance lineup, sandwiched between the BRZ and the winged STI.

As engaging as the rear-wheel-dive BRZ is, however, WRX — for about the same price — shows off its value with winter-friendly AWD, comfy seating for four, deep trunk space and big-screen ergonomics.

If you were hoping for a WRX for Christmas, however, you were disappointed. Production was delayed until January.

2022 Subaru WRX

Vehicle type: Front-engine, all-wheel-drive five-passenger pocket rocket

Price: Est. $29,000 (est. $32,000 Premium trim, Solar Orange Pearl paint as tested)

Powerplant: 2.4-liter turbo-4 cylinder Boxer engine

Power: 271 horsepower, 258 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: 6-speed manual, continuously variable transmission (CVT)

Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.4 seconds (Car and Driver est., manual); top speed, 145 mph

Weight: 3,320 pounds (premium as tested)

Fuel economy: EPA, 19 mpg city/25 highway/21 combined (auto); 19 mpg city/26 highway/22 combined (manual)

Report card

Highs: Upgraded looks; AWD OMG

Lows: Emotionless engine note; no adaptive cruise control with manual

Overall: 3 stars

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.

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