Is the Subaru WRX STI Coming Back to America? Everything We Know

Four years after Subaru of America declared there would be no gas-powered STI on the current WRX platform, the badge is unmistakably on its way back. Subaru has confirmed a manual WRX with the old STI's heavy-duty gearbox, a brand-new performance hatchback, and a race program built around an STI-badged prototype. What it has not confirmed, even once, is whether any of it will be sold in the United States.

Here is everything Subaru has actually said, everything it hasn't, and where the American question stands.

What Subaru has actually confirmed

The clearest statement of intent came in June 2026, at a media roundtable during the Fuji 24 Hours race in Japan. Subaru confirmed three new manual-transmission models arriving by 2027: a WRX sedan, a limited-run BRZ "Complete Car," and an all-new five-door hatchback. All three are being developed by the company's newly created Sports Vehicle Planning Office.

The WRX is the concrete one. From 2027, the manual returns to the WRX lineup as a permanent fixture — and not with the TY75 gearbox used in today's Japanese-market WRX STI Sport♯ and the US-spec WRX tS, but with the TY85, the heavy-duty six-speed that served the previous-generation WRX STI. Subaru says the TY85 was chosen for its durability. Bolting the old STI's transmission into a series-production WRX is the strongest mechanical signal yet of where this program is heading.

The hatchback is the intriguing one. Subaru says it is the production version of the Performance-B STI Concept shown at the Japan Mobility Show in late 2025. But Chief Technology Officer Tetsuro Fujinuki described it as an "affordable base car" with its own personality, distinct from the WRX and BRZ — not as an STI flagship. The widely held reading, which Subaru has not confirmed, is that this hatch becomes the foundation for a full STI later. Hood scoops on both the WRX and hatchback teasers point to the non-electrified 2.4-liter turbocharged boxer, though Subaru has not discussed powertrains.

The STI trail: two concepts, a prototype, and a race car

The confirmations didn't come out of nowhere. Subaru has been laying an STI breadcrumb trail for over a year.

At the Japan Mobility Show in 2025, it showed a pair of hot-hatch studies: the gas-powered Performance-B STI and the electric Performance-E STI, explicitly framed as a question to fans about what a future STI should be. In January 2026, at the Tokyo Auto Salon, it revealed the WRX STI Sport♯ Prototype — a near-production sedan with the 2.4-liter turbo boxer, a six-speed manual, and symmetrical all-wheel drive. That car reached Japanese customers in the spring as the WRX STI Sport♯, capped at 600 units and sold by lottery.

On track, the program is further along. The High Performance X Version II — a race-spec STI hatchback known as HiPerfX2 — debuted at the same Tokyo Auto Salon and is competing in the ST-Q class of Japan's Super Taikyu series this season. Subaru officially calls it a "development vehicle," which in plain terms means the next STI is being engineered in public, one race weekend at a time.

Will it come to the United States?

This is the hole in the story, and it is still wide open. The last official word from Subaru of America dates to March 2022, when the company said it was exploring options for the next-generation STI, including electrification, and that a combustion STI "will not be produced based upon the new WRX platform." That statement remains on Subaru's US media site today, unamended. Every confirmation since — the manual trio, the hatchback, the Sport♯ — has been made in Japan, about Japan.

There is one American paper trail, though. On June 9, 2026, Subaru Corporation filed a US trademark application for the name "Impreza TX" with the USPTO, alongside a matching filing in Canada. It is an intent-to-use application, and Subaru declined to comment on it when asked by multiple outlets. Automakers register names they never use, so this proves nothing on its own. But a model-specific name for a hatchback line, filed in North America weeks after Subaru teased a new performance hatch, is the closest thing US buyers have to a signal that this program isn't Japan-only.

Price, power, and release date

None of it is official. Subaru has said nothing about output for any of the three manual models, nothing about pricing, and nothing about on-sale dates beyond "by 2027" for the Japanese market. According to a report in the Japanese magazine Best Car, the production STI hatch could weigh around 1,600 kg (about 3,527 pounds) and cost 4 to 5 million yen in Japan — but those figures are unconfirmed, and Subaru has not commented on them. Treat every horsepower number you see attached to this car as a guess until Subaru says otherwise.

What we don't know yet

• US availability. No confirmation for the American market in any form; the 2022 statement is still the official line.
• The STI badge itself. Subaru has confirmed a hatchback, not a production car wearing "STI." The flagship remains an expectation, not an announcement.
• Price and power. Nothing official; Japanese-press figures are unverified.
• Electrification. Subaru's 2022 statement floated an electrified STI; the current teasers point the other way, and the company hasn't reconciled the two.
• The reveal date. Subaru has only promised debut details "in the coming months."

What's next

Subaru says debut dates for all three manual models will be announced in the coming months. The Tokyo Auto Salon in January 2027 is the obvious stage — it's where Subaru revealed the Sport♯ Prototype and the HiPerfX2 this year — but the company has not named a venue or a date, so treat that as an expectation rather than a plan. The other thing worth watching is the Super Taikyu season: every race the HiPerfX2 finishes is development mileage for whatever the production car becomes. We will update this page as Subaru confirms details.