August 1998

The following represents our opinion and should not be taken as fact. We are open to more accurate information from reliable sources. In the meantime we would like to offer some encouragement that these exciting cars may have a chance coming to the US.
The WRX and it's variations has been mostly right hand drive (rhd) only.
We studied 2 different WRX vehicles for Subaru North America to determine the feasibility of converting to left hand drive (lhd) and compliance with US requirements.

Some WRX vehicles have been converted to lhd for rally racing, some have been built lhd by the manufacturer for various import programs in Europe.
We are aware of one facility in Europe that either converts rhd to lhd or will install all of the special components into a normal Impreza to make it the equivalent of a WRX.
Apparently Subaru, Japan has produced some lhd WRX for sales in Europe. We've heard that these cars cannot have the variable torque split control.
We will not attempt US Certification on vehicles that only come in rhd as the market and final value in the US would be too narrow.
Since Europe is lhd and most rally racing prefers lhd there's some hope that sufficient lhd vehicles would be available.

We are currently working on solutions for US importation of the WRX vehicles.