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Subaru STI S209 shows off honkin' fender flares ahead of Detroit debut

We still don't know what's under the hood, but it'll rule nevertheless.

Andrew Krok Reviews Editor / Cars
Cars are Andrew's jam, as is strawberry. After spending years as a regular ol' car fanatic, he started working his way through the echelons of the automotive industry, starting out as social-media director of a small European-focused garage outside of Chicago. From there, he moved to the editorial side, penning several written features in Total 911 Magazine before becoming a full-time auto writer, first for a local Chicago outlet and then for CNET Cars.
Andrew Krok
2 min read

The hottest Subaru to ever grace the US is less than a week away from being unveiled at the 2019 Detroit Auto Show , and now, we've got our best look at the S209 yet.

Subaru took to Twitter to tease its S209 one more time before its debut in Detroit. This teaser offers up a good bit of the front end. My eye spies some big ol' fender flares and a pair of canards on the lower bumper. The rest of the front end remains obscured, so in all likelihood it'll carry some more aggressive aero in those locations, too.

While the looks are definitely part of the S-series' appeal, the S209's powertrain remains a mystery. The S208 of yore wields a 2.0-liter turbocharged H4 engine, but in the US, we're still making do with the tried-and-true 2.5-liter H4 turbo. A South African STI variant using this engine managed to eke out 349 horsepower. It's possible the S209 could see an output that high, but at the least, it will probably out-power the 310-hp STI Type RA.

Based on what the S208 brought to the table, it wouldn't be obscene to expect the S209 to pack some handling improvements by way of upgraded suspension components, along with some fancy wheels and the aforementioned aero.

In all likelihood, it'll be a limited-edition model as in iterations past. Subaru only built 450 examples of the S208, and owners were determined through a lottery. Whether Subaru will go through that rigmarole again has yet to be seen, but we'll know much more when we see the debut in Detroit next week.

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