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Details on the 2021 Subaru WRX and WRX STI are out and, to nobody's surprise, hardly anything changes. The STI's base price goes up by $250 to make it $38,170. Subaru has also filtered keyless entry with push-button start down to the WRX Premium. It was previously only standard on the Limited trim. You'll pay a bit more for the convenience, too, as Subaru upped the price of the Premium trim by $250 (now totaling $30,970) this year.

And that's it for changes to the 2021 models. At this point we have our sights set on a next-gen WRX. The Subaru Levorg revealed earlier this year was the best preview of what to expect when the car is finally revealed. Report after report have suggested new platforms and new engines are on the way. Spy shots of the next-gen car slathered in camouflage surfaced a couple months ago. It's coming, and it's likely going to arrive sometime in 2021 as a 2022 model year car.

This black Subaru WRX STI is going to be the next fireball of a racecar to be featured in Hoonigan's Gymkhana video series. It's billed as the "wildest WRX STI ever" by Subaru, and we're not going to argue with that claim. Just look at it.

The raw carbon body looks like an actual cheese grater. You could throw a whole chicken at the front fender as it drives by and end up with shredded BBQ. Its hood-exit flame-spitting exhaust will even give the bird a nice char as it passes over the front of the car. And no, we can't see any flames in the photos here, but Subaru promises that it does produce fire. The wacky aero was apparently developed in a wind tunnel. And if you haven't guessed by now, this car was designed with zero restrictions for anything. It's not competing in any competition, so everything was optimized for the best possible performance.

Just a few months after being unveiled in prototype guise, two production-ready versions of the new Subaru Levorg have been spied testing in Japan.

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by West Coast Editor James Riswick and News Editor Joel Stocksdale. First, they talk about the cars they've been driving, including the Toyota Supra, Subaru WRX STI S209, and the Mercedes-Benz CLA and GLB. They also discuss rumors of the Kia Stinger getting killed off. Greg Migliore takes a break to chat with Autoblog contributor Dan Edmunds to talk about the cars he's been testing. Finally, our editors take to the mailbag to help a listener pick a sport truck in the "Spend My Money" segment.

The 2019 Subaru STI S209 is a celebration of everything that made the STI and Impreza WRX STI line so popular with car enthusiasts. It has extreme body work, a heavily boosted flat-four that slams you in your seat, performance gizmos such as a center differential controller and an intercooler sprayer, as well as impressive handling and grip, in part due to its all-wheel drive. And of course, it has that signature boxer engine rumble, which has been accentuated with this model's exhaust system.

We wanted to share that sound so captured some footage of the car on start-up, gentle acceleration, full throttle acceleration, and some free-revving, in that order. It's a mellow sound, one that occasionally sounds like a motorcycle, but a bit smoother. And while it's noticeable at lower speeds, it's tuned such that it's extremely quiet at cruising speeds, and doesn't become massively louder at full throttle. In fact, you'll notice that the road noise and the wind rushing out of the exhaust ends up overwhelming the rumble at some points. It's something that both Senior Producer Chris McGraw and I noticed in our drives of the super Subaru. If it seems like it's too quiet, we're sure the aftermarket can solve the volume issue for you.

The 2019 Subaru STI S209 is peak Subaru for America. It's the most powerful and most expensive vehicle with the Subaru badge on it, and there will only ever be 209 of them sold. It's put together in STI's small shop in Kiryu, Japan, where workers put together approximately 2-3 cars per day. 

Subaru's long-used 2.5-liter EJ25 turbocharged flat-four is back for another round, but it's been modified to make more power than a regular WRX STI. The redesigned intake, larger HKS turbocharger and better-flowing exhaust system ramp output up to 341 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque, gains of 31 and 40 respectively over a regular STI. It can hit 60 mph in 4.9 seconds and tops out at 162 mph. A huge number of changes were made to the suspension, steering, aero and brakes to make the S209 drive better and produce quicker lap times on track.

The 2019 Subaru STI S209 gets a lot of features that distinguish it from your average WRX STI including wide body work, a giant wing, additional chassis braces and an extra 31 horsepower. It also brings back a performance gizmo that hasn't been featured in a U.S. market Subaru since 2007: the intercooler sprayer. As the name implies, it sprays cool water onto the air-to-air intercooler when pressing a button. In the case of the S209, that button is one of the paddles on the back of the steering wheel. That triggers the water nozzles hidden in the hood scoop to spray water. You can see what happens in the video below. Note that when the car is in motion, air would carry the spray farther back covering more of the intercooler.

The Subaru WRX STI is getting pretty long-in-tooth, but an all-new model is on the horizon and it could have 90 hp (67 kW / 91 PS) and 71 lb-ft (96 Nm) more than its predecessor.

The next-generation Subaru WRX STI may boast as much as 400 horsepower from a re-tuned, 2.4L turbocharged boxer engine, making it the most powerful factory STI ever to be offered in America. 

Forbes reports that an upgraded version of the engine currently offered in the three-row Subaru Ascent crossover will power the new model, rather than the 2.0-liter unit that powers the current WRX or the 2.5L found in the current STI.  

While most of us were asleep, several car makers unveiled a number of new models at the 2020 Tokyo Auto Salon that takes place these days in Japan. Subaru is present at the event and one of the vehicles displayed is the new Levorg Prototype STI.