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Subaru's STI motorsport arm celebrates 30 years of going fast

The letters W, R and X are often featured on the trunklid of a fast, blue Subaru, but the other important letters for a Subaru are STI – standing for Subaru Tecnica International. The STI motorsport brand brings to mind '90s World Rally Championship victories and Impreza legends such as the wide-bodied 1998 22B, but the division is actually a bit older: STI is celebrating its 30 th anniversary this week. Founded on April 2, 1988, Subaru's STI started out with tuned Legacy sedans. Its first car was a turbocharged Legacy, the RS RA from 1989, available only in a limited 100-unit run of Ceramic White cars, not the 555 Sonic Blue Mica or World Rally Blue that later became almost synonymous with hot Subarus. The RS RA produced 220 horsepower, which was very good for 1989. In January of the same year, three STI-modified Legacy Turbos were used to first break the 50,000 km, then the 100,000 km FIA World Speed Endurance records, with the cars run for 20 consecutive days at Arizona Test Center. The average speed was 138.78 mph, for 447 hours, 44 minutes and 9.887 seconds. That's quite a bit of driving, even in two-hour shifts. The first STI-branded Subaru vehicle was the Japanese-market Legacy STI in 1992, and the Impreza WRX STI followed it two years later. For some time, STI vehicles were the stuff of Gran Turismo gaming for most Subaru enthusiasts, until STI arrived in the United States in 2004. The first U.S.-bound model was the 300-horsepower WRX STI, a Peter Stevens-designed "Blob Eye" facelift of the second-generation Impreza. So far, STI's respectable tally stands at three WRC championships, 47 WRC wins, four Nurburgring endurance wins and a Nordschleife production sedan lap record set last year. Regarding STI's 30th anniversary year's production cars, there will be a limited-edition WRX STI Type RA and a STI-tuned BRZ tS for 2018. View 51 Photos Related Video:

VW Q3 Financial Woes, 2015 Tokyo Motor Show | Autoblog Minute

Consumer Reports pulls its Tesla recommendation, the U.S. Copyright Office offers a ruling affecting car owners, VW gets hit hard with third quarter losses, and lots of exciting news from Tokyo. Autoblog's Senior editor Greg Migliore reports on this Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. Tokyo Motor Show Mazda Subaru Suzuki Tesla Toyota Concept Cars Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video Tokyo 2015

Subaru recalls more cars, slashes guidance as cheating issue widens

By Naomi Tajitsu TOKYO — Subaru Corp said it would recall more vehicles sold in the Japan domestic market on new cases of inspection cheating, and cautioned that rising recall costs would lop off about a quarter from its annual profit forecast. Shares in Subaru, already reeling from a series of recalls for issues ranging from faulty components to inspection do-overs, fell 5 percent to a four-year low on Monday after news of the fresh recalls and the bleak outlook. The company, the smallest among Japan's major automakers, said it would recall around 100,000 vehicles, including its popular Impreza sedan, after discovering that final tests for components including brakes were not conducted properly. Vehicles sold overseas will not be affected. "It's unforgivable that these inspection-related issues are continuing," CEO Tomomi Nakamura said at a briefing, while repeatedly adding that the latest recall would be the last related to testing misconduct. The automaker expects to incur 6.5 billion yen ($57 million) in costs related to the latest recall. This, along with other quality-linked issues, is expected to push down Subaru's operating profit to 220 billion yen in the year to March 2019. It had previously forecast a 300 billion yen profit. Subaru posted a surprise operating loss of 25 billion yen for the three months ended September, its first time in the red for a quarter since 2009 and missing a mean forecast for a 68.46 billion yen profit from 10 analysts polled by Refinitiv. Recall-related costs were the main driver of the loss, while global sales fell 6 percent over the quarter due to weak demand in the United States — its biggest market, where overall demand has cooled since record-high sales in 2016. (Click here for an interactive version of this chart) Engine recall Last month, Subaru nearly halved its first-half operating profit view, citing higher quality-related costs. It later announced a global recall of around 400,000 vehicles, including its Forester SUV and Impreza sedan, to fix a design flaw in the engines' valve springs. That came on the heels of another series of recalls stemming from revelations last year that uncertified workers had been submitting final inspection reports for vehicles sold in Japan. That had also led to a recall of about 400,000 cars. Recalls are common in the auto industry, and automakers regularly put funds aside to pay for them.