Subaru WRX TR Arrives, But Not Everyone Gets A Big Wing

The new Subaru WRX TR or ‘Tuner Ready’ has been revealed without the pleasingly silly rear wing seen in leaked photos that emerged last week. Boo and indeed hiss.

What we saw making its debut at Subiefest in Florida over the weekend is the US market version, which quite deliberately does without. "In the USA, the rear wing has always been associated with the WRX STI and has only ever been offered on it. In other markets, the large wing has been offered on WRX models as well," a Subaru USA spokesperson told Motor1.

But hey - the TR still looks plenty snazzy with its unique 19-inch wheels (up from 18-inch on the standard car) which feature an asymmetrical spoke design and are wrapped in Bridgestone Potenza S007 tyres. Under those are beefier brakes, with 340mm discs at the front squeezed by six-piston calipers, at 236mm rotors at the back bitten by two-piston callipers. The master cylinder is bigger, too.

Elsewhere on the chassis front, we still have passive dampers per the Boggo WRX rather than the adaptive system found on the tS, but the damping rates have been revised. The TR does at least borrow the nicer Recaro seats of the tS.

The TR doesn’t get any more power than the standard WRX, so its 2.4-litre turbocharged boxer-four makes do with 271bhp and 258lb ft of torque. It’s also exclusively sold with a six-speed manual - there’s no option of the controversial CVT here, which is fitted as standard to the tS.

Even more so than the giant bonnet scoops of old, the large rear wing has been the defining feature of the Subaru WRX STI. And even though the world is - sadly - without a current version of the car, at least the TR making its way to some markets will bring it back

Unless it was already obvious, we won’t get the TR in the UK, where no WRX of any kind is currently sold. For the US, pricing will be announced later this year.