If you read our BRZ tS review, you know I was just in Sicily driving some Subarus. As you’ve no doubt gathered by now, the other car was the Subaru WRX TR. With the demise of the U.S. market STI at the hands of America’s goofy emissions regime the WRX TR assumes the mantle of Subaru’s most performance oriented car. It’s also the last AWD sedan you can get with a manual transmission in the US. Theoretically, it’s pitted against some excellent AWD hatches—a very good Golf R and the instant classic GR Corolla, but it’s also kind of not.
And it’s definitely not like the old WRX TR, which was launched in 2006 as a totally stripped down WRX that Subaru imagined would be immediately modified by its owner. Then, TR stood for Tuner Ready. Today, Subaru says that the TR stands, unofficially, for Track Ready. It has the creature comforts you’d expect from a Subaru priced around $40k, but it also has the wheels, tires, brakes, suspension and seats to get you most of the way to an STI. As far as power, Cobb could get you the rest of the way but you’d be putting your warranty at hazard.
I suspect there are people with some say-so at Subaru who were disappointed to see the STI scuttled late in the game, and the TR is a gesture toward making it up to enthusiasts. It’s more STI with a WRX motor than it is WRX with STI wheels, if that makes sense.
It’s not as serious as the Prodrive-modified 2023 WRX I drove last summer when I was in England to test the Prodrive P25. That car got a thorough re-work and parts that Prodrive would like to sell as a kit to Americans who are missing the STI, if the demand is there. It was a tracky tuner car, built by racers. It’s also not as manic or raw as an old STI, but I don’t think an actual STI built on this version of the WRX would be either. The passenger compartment is far too nice. The whole package feels like more of a classic high performance sport sedan than a tuned compact.
On the road, the TR felt faster than I expected with the Bridgestone Potenza S007 tires and all-wheel drive making the Targa Florio thing a lot less hairy than it was in the BRZ. As mentioned in the other review, conditions prevented any real testing of the braking and handling. Pushing the WRX too hard over very slick, broken, narrow roads that mostly overlooked mountainsides would have been dumb, and my goal for 2024 is to be less dumb.
All WRX models get chassis reinforcements for the sake of stiffness and crash safety for ‘24, and the TR gets a somewhat stiffer suspension tune than the standard car. It’s overall a comfortable, but communicative setup. I should note that while the WRX felt composed over normal broken pavement the biggest heaves did leave it bouncing a little after each impact, something that BRZ did not do. I should also note though, if you’re encountering heaves like those in the United States you’re probably off-roading.
Subaru claims to have added a little more assist to the electric power steering in search of more road feel. Some may prefer more steering effort, I may have if I tried it back to back with a standard WRX, but I felt like I had a good sense of what the front tires were doing. While the overall package is more refined than its forebears, the shifter is pure WRX. I could probably pick it out of a line-up blindfolded every time.
The Brembo brake package adds 6-piston monoblock calipers in the front, with 2-piston units in the rear. All four rotors are enlarged and cross-drilled. When combined with the 19-inch wheels and big Recaro buckets, the TR package ended up being a bit heavier than the standard car, necessitating the removal of the power moon-roof to more or less even things out. The Recaros are 8-way adjustable and plenty comfortable for a quick nap if you find yourself jet-lagged and in danger of falling asleep at the wheel on an Sicilian switchback.
Closing out my time in the TR, it crossed my mind that I wanted to continue driving it, or that maybe it would be a fun car to own. I need 4-doors but don’t ever see myself buying a performance car with an automatic, so my options are limited. At $42,775, I could get a GR Corolla, which I like more—but I’m probably too old to daily drive one of those, much as I’d love to. We already have a GTI, so the Golf R is probably out. A previous-gen STI has the same problem as the GR, namely that I’d be self-conscious going to a funeral in it. In darker colors and in person the styling of the TR is appealing. It was a round about way of getting there, but the TR kind of felt like a WRX that grew up.
It probably won’t actually happen, but accelerating toward a hairpin on a mountain road, the TR, surprisingly, felt like a car I could see myself buying. I’d probably end up voiding my warranty in pursuit of STI power, though.
