The artist formerly known as Impreza has been upgraded. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Subaru’s 325bhp WRX STI ‘S207’. And it’s not coming to Europe.

Though we get the ‘standard’, 2.5-litre 300bhp STI over here – after the ‘will they, won’t they’ dance of last year – Subaru has announced there are no plans to bring this new Tokyo Motor Show car to Europe.

Which is a shame, because not only is it yellow, it’s also powerful. It takes the all-wheel-drive WRX STI saloon as its base, but uses an uprated version of the turbocharged 2.0-litre boxer unit, here producing 325bhp and just under 434Nm of torque, thanks to a new ECU, performance exhaust, new turbo and a strengthened intake duct.

Then comes a glut of exclusive STI stuff: Bilstein adjustable dampers up front, 19-inch BBS forged alloys, a flexible front tower bar, rear subframe support, Brembo brakes, active torque vectoring and a quicker steering ratio.

No performance figures have been announced, but the 300bhp UK version will hit 100km/h in 5.2secs and rock on to 255km/h. This, then, might well be a sub-five-second car…

There are new Recaro front bucket seats, a new instrument panel, door trims, a new front grille, front spoiler and rear bumper, and of course, a few STI emblems dotted around.

Just 400 of these S207 models will be built, all for Japan. Two hundred of those can be specified as ‘NBR Challenge Package’ cars, which celebrate the crashy miracle that is the Nürburgring. As such, NBR cars get a huge carbon rear spoiler, and an ornament commemorating Subaru’s SO3T class victory from this year’s 24-hour race.

So if you’re in Japan and you like the sound of the S207, get your order in before March 2016. For the rest of us, the campaign starts here.

STORY Vijay Pattni