The 2024 Crosstrek Wilderness Feels Like a New Era of Subaru

It’s no secret that car enthusiasts have been a bit down on Subaru recently. With the company’s World Rally Championship days a distant memory and the newest iteration of the competent WRX lacking an STI to look up to, it feels like the days of exciting Pleiades-emblazoned vehicles are behind us. Foresters, Outbacks, and Ascents for Pacific Northwest-residing soccer moms seem to be the main output of the company, and while they’re good, they’re not pulse-pounding.

But in 2022, the company debuted the Wilderness line, starting with the Outback. The lifted suspension, off-road tuning, and extra unpainted plastics then migrated to the Forester, and now, the new 2024 Subaru Crosstrek gets the Wilderness treatment. Here, in the compact and relatively affordable crossover is where the nine-inch-plus ground clearance and rugged nature of the Wilderness ethos gets the most inspiring. A day in the canyons of Zion with it makes me believe that Subaru has found its enthusiast moxy in an entirely new way for the roaring Twenties.

What Venturing Into the Wilderness Gets You

The Wilderness formula on the 2024 Crosstrek is similar to its bigger and older siblings, the Forester and Outback. Ground clearance is bumped from 8.7 inches in the standard Crosstrek to 9.3 inches in the Wilderness. Accompanying that suspension treatment is an engine-protecting skid plate, Yokohama Geolandar A/Ts in place of all-seasons wrapped around new Wilderness-exclusive 17-inch wheels, upgraded engine cooling power, a devoted transmission cooler, and a 4.11 final drive ratio in an upgraded rear differential.

The Crosstrek Wilderness has the same engine found in the Sport and Limited trims, a 2.5-liter boxer-four that puts out 182 horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque. While performance from 0-60 is roughly identical to the Crosstrek Sport (aero disadvantages cancel out most of the 4.11 rear end’s gearing at speed), the Wilderness can tow 3,500 pounds (2,000 pounds more than the Limited) thanks to the upgraded cooling treatment. A continuously-variable transmission and symmetrical all-wheel-drive paired to Subaru’s X-Mode programming puts the power down to all four wheels, all the time. Inside the cabin, tweaks are minimal, with Wilderness-exclusive StarTex synthetic leather upholstery, a rear overhead hatch light, and copper accents tying together the standard Crosstrek cabin. Subaru’s entire suite of EyeSight driver-assistance tech also comes standard.

It’s indisputable that for $33,290 (after a $1,295 delivery and destination fee)—a bump of just $1,100 over the similarly-equipped Limited trim and $3,000 over the cheapest 2.5-liter-equipped Sport trim—the Wilderness offers a lot of goodies, and they add up quickly. You can’t build the Wilderness out of a base Crosstrek for less, even with a Harbor Freight catalog at the ready. That alone makes it an option worth considering.

The exterior gets the Wilderness-exclusive Geyser Blue paint as a no-cost option (which I chose for my test vehicle); the regular Crosstrek body also gets draped in rugged-looking plastic cladding on basically every surface imaginable. Subaru says that cladding is all easily and modularly replaced, so when you inevitably smack a rock while trail-running, you can swap out the damaged pieces on the cheap. Whether you’re a fan of the new Crosstrek’s styling or not, you have to admit that the Wilderness treatment makes it a lot less anonymous.

Stamping “Subaru” in all-caps across the hatch’s hindquarters has a way of doing that.

The Boxers And The Beehives

To test the new Crosstrek Wilderness properly, Subaru turned me loose on the streets of St. George, Utah, and aimed me towards Zion. My test car had the one and only option available, a $2,270 package that adds a ten-way adjustable power driver’s seat, a 10-speaker Harman Kardon stereo, and an electric sunroof/moonroof combo, meaning it was as fully loaded as a Crosstrek can be. The cabin is utilitarian, but pleasant, and feels appropriate for a $30K-and-change crossover, with comfortably bolstered seats, thoughtfully padded windowsills, convenience touches such as wireless charging and CarPlay, and an excellent analog gauge cluster.

The standard 11.6-inch vertically-oriented touchscreen is one of the few spots where the Crosstrek’s interior doesn’t shine. The base UI isn’t quick or pretty, the way menus overlay on each other means that multiple conflicting arrows can be found on-screen at once, and while the Crosstrek has devoted buttons for stereo controls and temperature, toggling through the X-Mode off-road functionality requires using the touchscreen, which I generally sought to avoid as much as possible. It’s not the worst infotainment UI that I’ve found recently, but it’s far from the best.