Subaru might build WRX hatchback after all

Fri, 04 Apr 2014

The 2015 Subaru WRX is awesome. Really awesome. We told you as much in our first drive of the new sedan back in December. Honestly, our only complaint about Fuji Heavy's new performance machine is that it's no longer offered as a hatchback – the new WRX is a sedan-only affair, despite the more functional five-door variant accounting for some 50 percent of sales in the car's last generation.

But there's hope on the horizon, if a report from Australia's Motoring.com is to be believed. Speaking with Masuo Takatsu, Subaru's general manager for the WRX, the company is now re-considering putting the "hatch" back in its hot hatch.

"We have received strong interest from the US, where the hatchback was 50 percent (of previous-generation WRX sales), so we're now considering," Takatsu told Motoring, noting that the United States is Subaru's main target for this car. Additionally, Takatsu said the company's decision to only offer the sedan was the result of limited engineering resources, echoing statements we've previously heard from Subaru's US arm.

The WRX is based on the Subaru Impreza, which is already offered in hatchback guise, and it's pretty easy to get an idea of what a hotter version of the five-door would look like. Should the WRX hatch be green-lit, it's unclear exactly when the car would launch.

We've reached out to Subaru for comment, but have not heard back as of this writing, so stay tuned to this space for more information as it becomes available. For now, all we can say is: yes. A thousand times, yes.

By Steven J. Ewing