The one remaining derivative that tied this car to its illustrious motorsport involvement has been axed.

TURBOCHARGED petrol flat four, clever all-wheel-drive, a manual transmission.

The most successful of the rally-bred production road cars out of Subaru has stayed true to that formula so as to properly keep the flame of its rally-infused, fast and furious history burning.

Until now.

If you’re of a mind that ‘no cogs, means no cojones’ … then best sit down and steel yourself. 

The emasculation of the WRX sedan the previous boss of Subaru New Zealand said would never happen under his watch has occurred.

First they removed the famous throaty exhaust burble (bad in 2005, when the firing and order and exhaust header design changed). Now an even greater tragedy …. the WRX manual is dead. 

The Premium manual, the $59,990 entry point to the current shape car, being absent from the 2025 lineup means this car will live out its final two years in slurring state.

For sure, the fast four-door that has stood as performance car icon for three decades will continue to deliver four-wheel drive and a taste for twisty back roads. 

But it’ll be less fun when driven for just that as from now on it will do so in high-level sedan and wagon formats purely with a ‘gearbox’ that isn’t. On account it lacks gears. 

Subaru’s Lineartronic is a constantly variable transmissions, that like all of that ilk relies on pulleys and a belt drive. It’s better than many. 

But it’s not a patch on what this car should have really migrated to, a direct shift manual. And it’s certainly no substitute for the transmission type that DSCs have replaced on most sporting cars.

Manual has been a core commonality tying every WRX in the 30 years since Japan gave birth to a spirited all-wheel-drive sedan that would become a cult car. 

Status lift arrived mainly through several decades of world (for 18 years) and national rallying, with 13 titles accrued. Oh, and some Ken Block/Travis Pastrana craziness). Either way, hand-shifting high revs frenzy has made the car whose namer stood for World Rally (e)Xperimental a household name, a poster child, a boy racer dream machine. An icon. 

CVTs have been tried in motorsport, but never to point of getting beyond behind-the -scenes trials with Fuji. Certainly, Subaru and Prodrive never bothered with it in world championship rallying. 

Though some Kiwis run CVT WRXs in small regional contests - I have a friend who runs one in hillclimbs - it’s reasonable to argue that not one crucial competition kilometre has ever been clocked in a CVT WRX.

But CVTs are cheap to make, at time of initial implementation delivered a degree of fuel efficiency (since bettered by electric applications) and the Japanese car industry loves them for road car application.

On the other hand, manual just seemed one of those things that just ought to be around even if you’re not actually going to use it.

When this generation WRX arrived in June of 2022, Subaru NZ’s then boss, Wal Dumper, admitted it had been hard to include a manual, because it even then was an outlier choice. 

Fewer than 10 customers wanted that level of interaction. Too few, really, to keep in it circulation.

However, he kept it in the fray. Strongly sentimental reason made it impossible not to. 

Dumper’s tenure as managing director from 2010 to earlier this year was a period that lifted the Fuji make’s image to a remarkable point. 

NZ for much of that period held highest global penetration for per head of population for the make’s all-wheel-drive product. That strategy pinpointed the cars’ value in two enthusiast involvements: Recreational driving (hence why Central Otago is a population hot spot). 

And for rallying. The WRX holds more international and national titles than any other car. Every trophy has gone to a manual version. 

Under Dumper, Subaru NZ poured money into every high-level Kiwi campaign, from Possum Bourne onward. Every national championship-winning car was distributor-supported and Dumper made a point of being on special stages.

That enthusiasm kept a manual in the current generation car’s four choice mix when it unveiled in June, 2024. 

Two years on, the car is now arriving in a facelift form. Dumper has moved on. Customers have further refined their support for the CVT.

Losing the manual seems a sensitive subject for Subaru NZ. 

A fresh release about this from the Auckland office manages to completely avoid saying outright that manual exempts the reshuffle that pares WRX choice down to two tS level cars.

Old school fans might lament but it’s if current buyers join in any chores of display, they’ll seem hypocrites. It’s entirely likely their buy-in decisions of the past two years that has fuelled the biggest of all big calls. 

Doubtless they will argue their WRXs are as good. Doubtless Subaru NZ will keep spruiking the now $67,990 car’s performance prowess. 

The release, indeed, continues to beat the drum for those now very long ago days of McRae, Burns, Sainz and Possum Bourne powering a 555 blue and gold-wheeled WRX to amazing victories, and in some ways fair enough. There is a strong lasting memory and legacy (pun not included) with the WRX that is inter-generational.

But as much as new general manager Tim Barns-Lawton will enforce that an exhilarating driving experience remains at the heart of the latest update, it won’t be as exciting as it used to be. Nowhere near. An era has ended.

With WRX manual gone, there remains just one stick shift Subaru in distributor circulation for 2025. The $59,990 BRZ tS recently announced for arrival in April has a six-speed manual transmission. 

Just 10 are in the consignment.