Everyone Wants A Subaru WRX
Subaru switched around the WRX lineup last year. The company removed the base trim, bumping the entry price up, and sales fell off a cliff early in the year. Now, the base trim is back for 2026, and what do you know: Sales are back up.
Subaru released its sales report for May of 2026 the other day, and it showed a staggering change in WRX sales: A 147.9% year-over-year increase, from 482 WRXes sold in May of 2025 to 1,195 sold in May of '26. That's still a downturn from the 1,673 WRX sales that Subaru managed in May of 2024, but remember how far our economy has come since 2024 — tariffs, depressed wages, stalling economic growth, anxiety around the AI bubble, rising fuel prices. It's been a wild year, so it's nice to see people are still buying WRXes at all. After all, it's not exactly a car known for its fuel efficiency.
In the dark times, should the stars also go out?
Despite the economic headwinds, it seems people still want fun, cheap, practical cars. Now that the WRX's base price sits noticeably below the Volkswagen GTI and Hyundai Elantra N, it's no surprise that more entry-level performance car buyers — historically a target group for the sport-compact segment — would gravitate towards the Subaru. Sure, the Civic Si is cheaper, but even that lacks the WRX's all-wheel drive. How else are you going to tear up the rally course you'll surely someday visit?
It's nice to see people are still getting into cool cars, despite everything. Even as automakers abandon the idea of cheap fun, buyer's haven't given up yet. Of course, there's also the theory that people could be buying performance cars because of the state of things — after all, if the world feels like it's teetering on the edge of collapse, wouldn't you rather have some fun before everything goes all Mad Max?