Subaru is a bland company in a boring place. It’s a legacy mark, once beloved by young fans for making accessible, rally-inspired hatchbacks, perfect for tuning up, taking off-road, or using as your compact, everyday car.

Their current line-up consists primarily of various mid-size SUVs, some of which are electric, and none have a soul. They still sell the BRZ sportscar, which they developed with Toyota; but whereas Toyota has made their version, the GR86, a modest success, Subaru doesn’t make or sell many BRZ and seems to want to forget it exists.

And then there’s the WRX; a spiritual successor to the rally-derived Impreza WRX compact sedan. Theoretically, this should be their flagship sporty car, reigniting excitement for the brand and attracting new young customers. For some reason, Subaru instead decided to affix the label to a somewhat ugly, lifted sedan that nobody cares about or buys, unrelated to the Impreza, a separate compact sedan model.

I wrote about this dire state in these pages last August, saying that the way to save the model and bring excitement back to Subaru was to release a WRX STI. Take the WRX and drop the suspension, fit it with a manual transmission, and give it a styling, handling, and engine tune-up to compete with Toyota’s GR Corolla. This wouldn’t solely be a good marketing move; Subaru would have a hit on the hands. Toyota can’t build enough GR Corollas to meet demand, and the STi is a far more famous label.

It’s hardly an inspired idea, and it’s so obvious that Subaru agrees and is finally making a WRX Sti. Only they’ve done so in the worst way possible.

The WRX S210 STI has a stylish new, sporty body kit, rally-inspired seats, and chassis and brake upgrades. On the surface, it looks right.

However, otherwise, this isn’t an STi so much as an STi light. It’s not much lower than the standard WRX; it only has 25 horsepower more, putting it 50 horsepower down on the last generation STi; and it comes exclusively as an automatic, with no manual gearbox option. Finally, it’s a Japan-exclusive model, limited to 500 units; which would be a shame if it weren’t such a letdown.

Could this be a precursor for a proper, worldwide WRX STi? Perhaps. But given how little marketing Subaru put into this release and how poorly they’ve handled it, we’ve no reason to think a mainstream version will be much better.