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Car Review
Subaru WRX (US) review
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Interior
What is it like on the inside?
The inside of the WRX is very roomy and practical, even in the sportier configs. In those, it’s really the sport seats doing the snuggling, and the rear fits normal-sized humans. If you bust out the measuring tape, you’ll find 36 inches of legroom and just as much head room, with the front seats giving more, naturally. That’s about on par with what you’d get from a seat upgrade on a flight. In the trunk, there’s around 12.5cu ft of cargo space, enough for, like, 24 frozen turkeys.
How is the tech?
The in-car tech is easy to use, but there are a few odd quirks. For instance, the WRX comes with a whopper 11-inch interface with big, chunky icons and it’s also compatible with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Using either one tends to dominate all of the screen real estate, which is fine, particularly when it comes to maps. We were happy to use it but found that switching drive modes kept kicking us back to the native home screen, and we’d have to manually select CarPlay to return to it. Dealbreaker? Hardly, but an irritating bug that needs to be sorted.
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The WRX tS comes with its own cool 12.3-inch digital driver display that mirrors the analog gauges standard in the other models, but has other configurations to display the info you need. It can also display Apple Maps if you’re using that as your navigation app. For a new feature it’s pretty good, but there’s room for improvement, particularly if it’s going to be a tS exclusive for a while. Specifically, it could stand to have a track-specific screen when it’s in Sport Plus, something to display the gears more prominently or the tach that requires so much attention.
What’s it got in terms of safety features?
Eyesight, Subaru’s driving assist, is standard across all models, including the sporty tS and the other manual-fitted versions. This safety suite includes adaptive cruise control, pre-collision braking and lane departure warnings. Subaru’s keen to point out that including this package on the manual WRXs plays a part in “saving the manuals” by not compromising on safety and convenience for the sake of rowing your own gears. The software also has variable settings depending on what drive mode you’re in, so if you’re in the sportier configs, it gives you more slack than in comfort.
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