Two things stand out on this new (2024 model year) Impreza trim level: the RS badges and the big touchscreen. The badges lead to disappointment; the screen is a welcome upgrade.

Let’s get past the disappointment first. “RS” is borrowed from German, where it means Rennsport, “racing sport.” For decades, the letters have been applied to higher-performance versions of Porsches. (“RSR” is for Rennsport Rennwagen, sports racing car—a badge that Porsche reserves for track-only cars.) A Porsche with RS in its name is guaranteed to impress. An Impreza RS, however, does nothing of the sort, at least when it comes to performance.

Behind the front bumper is the familiar 2.5-litre Flat-4 “boxer” (another Porsche reference) engine from the Subaru Crosstrek, rated for 182 horsepower and 178 lb-ft of torque. For the Impreza, these numbers are bump-ups of 30 HP and 33 torques—significant improvements for a compact car, but hardly enough to elevate the Impreza RS to the pocket-rocket class. (The other two Impreza trim levels, the base and Sport, keep the previous 152-horsepower 2.0-litre engine.)

But this sixth generation of the Impreza offers a number of other changes that are also noteworthy. First, no more sedan model—young Subie buyers with starter paychecks buy hatchbacks. Second, no more 5-speed manual gearbox-with-clutch pedal, either. All three Impreza models get a newly smoother, quieter Lineartronic continuously variable automatic transmission.

The RS also gets shift paddles on the steering wheel that, in manual mode (click the shift lever to the left), offer eight forward “gears.” It lets a keen driver wring the most out of the RS’s new engine.

Subaru has also added the dual-pinion electronic steering rack from the higher-performance WRX and claims a 10-percent stiffer chassis than before, for better steering and response. The RS feels like it could manage considerably more power yet, and no doubt Subaru-specialty tuner shops will rise to the challenge.

Other upgrades include subtly evolved styling and the latest version of Subaru’s excellent EyeSight Driver Assist Technology, including Lane Keep Assist and Rear Cross-Traffic Alert, and automatic emergency steering on cars with blind-spot detection. And Subaru’s Starlink Multimedia Plus system, with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, is available on Impreza for the first time, now in an 11.6-inch touchscreen that brings the car into the present century.

To a committed Subarista—and they are legion, particularly in parts of the planet that especially favor rugged, value-priced, all-weather vehicles—the evolutions that led to this new Impreza are significant. They move the car one, maybe even two notches up the desirability scale. And if the Impreza RS still doesn’t have the horses to qualify as a Hot Hatch, consider this: the top Hot Hatch available in America, the 315-horsepower Volkswagen Golf R, costs upward of $45,000 while our Impreza RS lists for just $28,975.

Next week: Mazda CX-50