Fuji’s winged wild child expected to spawn a crazy flagship of incoming electric fleet.

THOUGHT impending electric fare out of Subaru includes a model inspired by an 800kW-plus monster with a look straight from the Le Mans grid has the make’s local boss excited.

Wal Dumper certainly believes there’s potential the STI E-RA could at least contribute to what could emerge as the top dog out of eight electrics Subaru will be building by 2028.

While the car itself might not have much in common with any road-going Subarus - and is also a world away from the famous models that fed the make’s rally heritage - that doesn’t mean elements won’t hit the road, Subaru NZ’s managing director  believes.

 “It’s a very cool looking thing. We’d like to know where it is at the moment, we’re hoping that’s one of the big surprises we get as we go forward.”

Head office in Japan keeps quietly assuring intent to keep making performance product.

It says there will be another WRX STI but has also made clear the next-generation is more likely going to be a fully-electric model than another petrol car. 

The car that eventually emerges for showroom-readiness might not be a outrageous as the fully electric prototype performance car exuding circuit-ready personality that unveiled two years ago.

Yet it will be a Subaru Technica Internal project. Subaru’s motorsport division and performance engineering has been largely out of the public limelight since the decision was made to stop development on the current WRX and instead focus on the next-generation.

Unfeasible? Subaru had two electric world reveals at the 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon. 

One was STI E-RA and the other the car that Subaru NZ has just released here, the Solterra sports utility wagon.

Solterra was a co-development with Toyota, whose own bZ4X is also due to come on sale here imminently.

Toyota is an acknowledged electric drivetrain expert - albeit with hybrids - and it also has a shareholding in Subaru.

Yet the partnership that developed Solterra is unlikely to feed into the other electrics coming out of Subaru.

All will be fully in-house efforts, Dumper suggested at yesterday’s Solterra media event.

“When we look forward Subaru will be manufacturing its own BEVs and that begins in the near future.”

If STI E-RA were to go into production, it would stand as the most outrageous car ever attempted by the make and easily the most expensive.

In concept form, it features a carbon-fibre monocoque, using experience from STI’s BRZ GT300 car that competed in Japan’s Super GT series.   

Like every other Subaru on sale today, STI-E-RA is all-wheel drive. 

But whereas Solterra has dual motors - one for each wheel set - the concept goes further, with one electric motor for each wheel.

This allows for torque vectoring. In show form, each motor was producing 200kW of power for a total system output of 800kW and 1100Nm of torque.

The ‘Hyper-EV’ traction motors were developed by Yamaha and have since been improved. Last April it said it was accepting orders for motors producing 350kW.

Powering the electric motors is a 60kWh lithium-ion battery.

Subaru says it built the STI E-RA concept to gain “experience and training of new technologies in the world of motorsports in this carbon-neutral era.” 

The concept’s GT-style, high-downforce bodywork has cutouts in the body to pull air out from the wheel wells and accelerate it towards the towering rear wing. 

A carbon-fibre splitter up front, Formula 1-style bargeboards and a rear diffuser also feature. The concept’s roof-mounted intake scoop evokes the iconic, WRC Impreza rally car and is presumed to feeds air to the battery pack’s cooling system.