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Subaru teasing new WRX S4 model ahead of Japanese debut

The Subaru WRX range is growing just a little bit larger, at least in Japan, with the automaker's teasing announcement of a new version called the S4. Unfortunately, the company is keeping details about its latest all-wheel drive sport sedan a closely guarded secret for the moment.
From what we can glean, it appears that the S4 might be a more luxurious take on the WRX. According to the release, the name stands for the four qualities that Subaru wants the sedan to have: "'Sports performance', 'Safety performance', 'Smart driving' and 'Sophisticated feel.'" As part of this focus, the car comes with the company's EyeSight camera system. Thankfully, we don't have too long to wait to find out what all of the buzz words actually mean because Subaru is unveiling the S4 on August 25 in Japan.
The automaker also launched a teaser website for the S4 that you can cheek out, here, but at the moment it doesn't provide any more details about the new sport sedan. The site just has countdown until the August reveal. There's also no indication yet whether this potentially more premium WRX could make it US shores. Scroll down to read the Subaru's rather concise teaser for the upcoming S4.

2018 Subaru WRX Drivers' Notes | Turbo traditionalist

Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore: The Subaru Impreza WRX is one of my favorite enthusiast sedans. It's invigorating, just a bit raw and makes you want to drive it more and more. Our tester has subtle blue paint and aggressive black wheels, which strike the right tone. It's sporty without being stupid. Inside is black leather, red stitching, and plastics that are decent, or at least non-offensive. Good looking car, overall. I was excited for my one-night stint in the WRX. I blitzed home, dashing in and out of traffic in the lower gears. This thing is like a hovercraft, and with the windows down and the engine growling and buzzing, I made record time. The steering is tight, the clutch engagement is heavy, and the brakes have just the right amount of pedal depth. I felt focused and in control. I've always felt the WRX is the right Impreza for me. The STI is awesome, but unusable for many everyday driving experiences. I could live with the WRX longterm, and love it. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Associate Editor Joel Stocksdale: If you've ever lamented that turbo cars don't feel like turbo cars anymore, you should check out a WRX. Its 2.0-liter turbocharged flat-four definitely takes a page from the peaky boosted beasts of the past. Driven at low rpms and gently enough that boost still builds, the turbo is laggy and takes a while to hit peak boost. This means that in mild driving, you'll be just shy of the speed limit when the turbo whacks you in the back, and you'll have to jump back off the accelerator just a moment later. But the rush of the turbo kicking in is still pretty entertaining, and a unique feeling that has been engineered out of a lot of other turbo cars. If you drive the WRX hard, though, the turbo engine becomes much easier to work with. The lag disappears, and the turbo spools right up. But you do have to be running the boxer right up close to redline to keep it responsive. These characteristics aren't something I personally enjoy. But the way the rest of the WRX drives is spot on for me. The steering is weighted nicely, and the car is very responsive. It also feels quite neutral, much more so than even good front-drive and front-biased all-wheel-drive cars. There's a bit of lean, but the chassis is always composed and communicative. And the benefit of the slightly roll-y suspension is that the WRX has impressive ride quality.

Junkyard Gem: 1980 Subaru 4WD Hatchback

Living in Colorado, where they might as well issue you a Subaru at the state line, I see plenty of worn-out Pleiades-badged cars in the local wrecking yards. Most of them fall into the 15-to-25-year-old age group, but I'll spot the occasional Malaise Era Subaru, from the era when the Leone was sold in North America as, simply, "the Subaru." Here's a 1980 base-level hatchback with the four-wheel-drive option, spotted in a yard just outside of Denver last month. In 1980, the US-market Subaru could be had in three trim levels (STD, DL, and GL), and as a coupe, sedan, hatchback, or wagon (the pickup version was known as the BRAT). This STD hatch is the cheapest possible Subaru available in 1980 with four-wheel-drive, and I'm just disappointed that they didn't put STD badges on the base-level cars. The driver had to choose between front- and four-wheel-drive by hand, using this lever. If you left the car in 4WD for long periods on dry pavement, you'd wear out the tires and/or break something. By 1997, all US-market Subarus had full-time all-wheel-drive, with no driver decisions about driven wheels needed. Subaru offered an automatic transmission and a five-speed-manual for these cars, but just about all buyers of late-1970s/early-1980s Subarus went with the cheaper four-on-the-floor manual. When you see a junkyard car with the keys still present, you can assume that the car ended up here after being totaled by an insurance company or traded in on a new car. A battered 39-year-old Subaru won't get much interest at the sort of auction these cars go to, and so the junkyard ends up being the next stop. The owner's manual was still in the glovebox, and of course I took at home and scanned a few pages (look in the gallery, above, for those scans). The folks at Subaru PR were interested in this book for their archives (they don't have one), so I'll make sure it gets to them soon. Rodent bedding and poop fill the engine compartment, and the employees of this yard marked the car as a hantavirus biohazard. I'd wear a mask if I needed to pull the engine from this car, because hantavirus is a real problem in Colorado and has a scary 35% mortality rate. Speaking of the engine, you're looking at 67 mighty horsepower here. With the car scaling in at about 2,200 pounds empty, drivers needed patience on uphill freeway onramps (actually, they needed patience when driving anywhere). By the standards of Japanese cars of this era, the rust problem doesn't look too bad.