Subaru has given a glimpse at the future of its STI performance brand with a wild new sports car concept at the Tokyo motor show.
The Performance-E STI concept “represents the future of the performance scene, spearheading Subaru’s new generation”, the company said.
It has given very few details of the concept, but says it has been designed with influence from the brand’s heritage, and offers a “driver-friendly layout and a comfortable, spacious interior”.
It is also understood to feature two driven axles, in line with the STI brand’s affinity for four-wheel drive, rally-honed performance.
The concept comes shortly after Subaru’s European boss David Dello Stritto told Autocar that “there were plans to bring back the sportiness in Subaru”.
He said the brand had a reputation for selling cars that were “safe, fun and tough” (SFT), but said there were opportunities to consider relaunching a performance model, with the previous Impreza WRX STI bowing out of Europe nearly a decade ago.
“There’s a fourth pillar I’ve been missing to sell in Europe for the last 10 years and that’s P, for power and performance,” he said. “Ask the average person what Subaru means and they’ll say STI. You can’t disassociate this from Subaru.
“So we need to bring sportiness back to Subaru. Right now, we couldn’t do it: Europe says you can’t, because you have a GPF [gasoline particulate filter] that can literally choke your engine.”

Primarily for that reason, he said electric vehicles present an interesting opportunity to reinvent the STI brand – because “you’ve got the power and performance, and you’ve got an all-wheel drive system” – the latter being an intrinsic element of Toyota’s performance heritage.
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“We’re working on more sporty models, and electrification allows us to do this”, he said – and the Performance E-STI appears to be the manifestation of that ambition.
Notably, it has been revealed just a few weeks ahead of the 30th anniversary of Colin McRae’s legendary WRC victory at the wheel of the Subaru Impreza 555, and clearly takes some influence from the iconic Group A dominator in its dark blue paint, gold wheels and pink STI detailing.
It does not appear to be based on any current production model, but as a rakish, four door fastback, it could preview a successor to the current Subaru Legacy, which has been on sale (not in the UK) for six years.
The Performance E-STI follows on from the wild STI E-RA concept Subaru revealed in 2022 as an early indication of its plans to maintain a performance car offering in the EV era.
That concept, though, was a dedicated supercar – completely unrelated to any production model – with a quartet of Yamaha EV motors that produced 1073bhp, and a carbonfibre monocoque helping to keep weight to 1690kg.
Also on Subaru’s Tokyo stand was an STI concept version of the current production Impreza (pictured below), which is more likely to enter production in the near future as a replacement for the US- and Japan-market WRX, which is effectively a standalone model separate from the Impreza line.

Details were similarly sparing, but it was said to have a boxer engine and AWD, and had been designed to “offer more customers the chance to experience the joy of driving”.
There was no word on any plans for a production version, nor any indication that it could be a global model.
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Felix is Autocar’s deputy editor, responsible for leading the brand’s agenda-shaping coverage across all facets of the global automotive industry – both in print and online.
He has interviewed the most powerful and widely respected people in motoring, covered the reveals and launches of today’s most important cars, and broken some of the biggest automotive stories of the last few years. 
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