2011 Subaru Outback 2.5i Wagon 4-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

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Toyota GT86 engineers explored shooting brake and sedan variants, are they still in the cards?

According to the Toyota UK blog, engineers for the automaker were so excited developing the GT86 coupe that they investigated producing a whole family of models based on the rear-wheel drive sports car. And at least one engineer - product chief Tetsuya Tada - still hopes it can happen, even if not everyone at Toyota is onboard. Tada: "Actually we tried to do this secretly but the executives found us out. They said: 'What are you doing? Will you please focus on the coupe.'"
Those mooted variants included both a four-door sedan and a shooting brake. Why? Aside from the pure excellence of a lightweight, brilliantly handling hatchback, Toyota was keenly aware of the fact that it may need to spread the cost of development out across several models. Tada says that's part of the reason why it was so easy to create the convertible. The company knew from the outset that a softtop version was in the cards, and built the machine's structure to accommodate having the roof sliced off.
Tada also made mention of the already-announced collaboration between Toyota and BMW. The engineer said that the GT86 was particularly helpful because it demonstrated just how successful a product conceived and designed by two different companies can be. While he didn't say exactly what Toyota and BMW are up to, it's clear the two are looking into a number of possibilities. It's an interesting read with a lot of

Are you the Subaru WRX Concept for New York?

When Subaru dropped a hint about bringing an "all-new performance concept car" to the New York Auto Show this year, we immediately started hoping and praying that a conceptual iteration of the next WRX was in the offing. Looks like that might have paid off. While no official word has yet been written or uttered from Subaru, a French website called Blog Automobile has released a gallery of images that would seem to spill the beans about the WRX Concept.
If the leaked images are correct - and they look awfully complete and well done if they're not - WRX styling is taking a turn for the handsome. The sleek sedan in these images has all of the cues that we've come to expect from our rally-ready Imprezas: a dominating hood scoop and very wide stance with beefy wheels, and seems to miss only the rear wing to fit the perfect WRX stereotype. (And, yes, it should have gold wheels.)
There's no press release to be found, but the source is citing specifications as if it knows what it's talking about. We're told that 275 to 300 horsepower are the likely output of the turbocharged boxer four-cylinder engine, and that brakes with ventilated discs and six-piston calipers are there to haul the all-wheel-drive Scooby down from speed. If our earlier reporting is correct, we might expect to find an electric turbo under that imposing hood, too.

Subaru is America's third most off-roaded brand

When you think of iconic off-road brands, where does Subaru fall on your radar? Somewhere in the middle? Perhaps near the bottom? Don't worry, you're not alone. Until recently spending some time in Bend, OR, where we drove the all-new 2015 Subaru Outback, we never really pegged the Japanese automaker to be a highly lauded brand among off-road enthusiasts, despite many of the company's products actually being quite capable when the going gets rough.
But the data says we're wrong. According to a 2013 J.D. Power study, Subaru vehicles have some of the highest use off road compared to other brands - of course "off road" here just means anything not on a paved road, so even gravel trails and tame two-tracks count in these statistics. Nearly 29.5 percent of its cars are used on trails and dirt roads, with only the Ram and Jeep brands besting that statistic, at 30.2 and 31.0 percent, respectively. Said another way, Subaru sold 424,683 vehicles in the US in 2013, meaning that some 125,281 saw off-road use. Mainstream brands like GMC, Ford and Chevrolet all trail Subaru, and even Land Rover comes in at less than 20 percent.
Some 34.7 percent of Outbacks are taken off paved roads, according to J.D. Power data.