Subaru's made a weird Nürburgring special

There are numerous Nürburgring specials you can buy, most of them stripped-out hot hatchbacks. Subaru, though, has trodden a slightly different route with its. Meet the WRX S4 tS NBR Challenge Package, long in name and droney in gearbox, because it uses a CVT. Imagine how long the name would be if it was still called an Impreza...

Alright, so Subaru’s CVT isn’t an industrial noise-fest like rival transmissions elsewhere, and might actually encourage you to take control of the power delivery yourself via the steering wheel paddles. But it still seems an incongruous choice in a car purporting to be a Nordschleife edition.

Nonetheless, it’s a cool car, and you’re perfectly entitled to shed a tear or two over the fact it’s for the Japanese market only.

The NBR pack is an aesthetic one. It brings numerous styling additions over standard, including black 19in alloy wheels, an enormous carbon rear spoiler and a suede wrapped steering wheel, complete with all-important centre-marker for peak rally kudos.

Beneath the skin, the tS part of its spec mates a 296bhp tune of 2.0-litre turbo four and more aggressive STI-tuned suspension with the CVT transmission that Japanese buyers seem to covet. There’s a base tS, too (the white car, pictured), but the option of the NBR kit leads to perhaps the most niche specification of WRX imaginable, and one which costs around £40,000.

Flicking through all the options in the Japanese brochure must by utterly dizzying. Back in the UK, things are far simpler, with just one choice of WRX, the STI. It may be a slight anachronism, but it’s a £29k hot hatch rival that’s heavy on character. And has a manual gearbox, thankfully…