Is this truly a preview of the next-generation Subaru WRX STI due by 2020? With its pumped wheel-arches, aggressively angular design details, carbon-fibre elements and signature oversized rear wing, a legion of WRX fans will certainly be hoping so – motoring.com.au included!
But based on the fact that previous concept cars made by the Japanese car company have been diluted to homeopathic levels, we're not getting our hopes up.
But like the elusive final card you've been waiting for in a game of Texas Hold 'Em poker, we're all hoping that once, just once, Subaru's production car lives up to its concept precursor.
After all, this has Subaru Tecnica International's stamp of approval all over it.
Revealed not at this week's Detroit motor show but the Tokyo Auto Salon (an aftermarket JDM fanatic's dream), the Subaru Viziv Performance STI Concept is bereft of any technical specifications. Drat.
We do know it will be based on the new Subaru Global Platform, which underpins the current Impreza and is an architecture that will ensure the vehicle has improved structural rigidity, less weight, sharper handling and the potential for electrification.
One of the reasons the car has been delayed until the end of the decade is because the Subaru is understood to be working on a hybrid version of a 2.0-litre turbo boxer engine, improving performance via an electric boost while reducing CO2 emissions. This engine could also work its way into the new 2019 Subaru Forester.
We could talking about a 250kW/500Nm machine here, making it significantly more powerful than the current model's 221kW and 407Nm. Lump in Subaru's all-wheel drive system (potentially tweaked to better make use of the electric motor) and the new model could represent a paradigm shift for the famous STI performance brand.
Whatever the case, the Viziv ('Vision for Innovation') Performance STI Concept delivers impressive levels of eye candy.
Although the car appears to be simply a modded version of the Subaru Viviz Performance Concept revealed a few months ago the 2017 Tokyo motor show, there's enough visual drama here to get chins wagging.
The front-end has a motorsport-inspired chin spoiler to keep it planted at high speeds, while the twin lateral air-dams have been covered and stamped with STI logos – a tip of the hat to WRX STI models from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The ubiquitous bonnet scoop returns – this time blacked out – and the headlights are slimline LED units, all of these elements creating a butch front-end.
The car's flanks look super tough as well, with blistered wheel-arches adopting an angular motif, shrouding sizable deep-dish alloy wheels. The side-skirts feature red pinstripes which wrap around the front and rear body kit too.
The rear-end is just as tasty, with a huge rear wing returning for active duty -- this time with a bit of aerodynamic contouring for good measure. It sits above stylised brake lights (borrowed from the new Honda NSX?) and a significant rear diffuser flanked by a pair of staggered dual exhaust outlets.
We're hoping – actually praying – that this incredible concept car isn't just a fantasy and that at least some of the design cues will make it to the production version of the next Subaru WRX STI due in 2019.
Oh, and how about a Levorg Viziv STI wagon concept next?