The new Subaru Impreza family, which has only made it to South Africa in XV crossover form, has been missing a critical high-performance protagonist ever since it hit the international scene two years back.
But now the wait for petrolheads is over as the all-new WRX comes to life. Officially, it's only set to be revealed at the LA Auto Show next week, but the first two pictures you see in the gallery are allegedly official pictures that have been leaked. It seems plausible enough to us, given how the frontal shot matches up to the teaser image that Subaru recently released (third pic in the gallery).
Although it's still clearly based on the bread-and-butter Impreza sedan, Subaru has put a lot more effort into differentiating it, to the point where the WRX gets a completely unique front end design, along with widened wheel arches, brawny side skirts and additional body creasing.
No official word yet on what's beneath the bonnet, but the latest media reports from abroad speculate that it'll pack a new 2.5-litre boxer turbopetrol that pushes something in the region of 200kW.
Watch this space as all will be revealed soon.