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Best. Year. Ever. Subaru breaks yearly and monthly sales records in 2017

After a generally good sales year for most car manufacturers, one company had a spectacular year: Subaru. The company reported with its end-of-year sales that 2017 was it's best sales year of all time. The total was 647,956 vehicles sold over the 12 months. Not only that, but December was also the best month of sales the company has ever seen with 63,342 cars sold. That's nearly 10 percent of the annual sales in one month. As far as individual models go, the Impreza and Crosstrek each had their best month in December and 2017 was each model's best year. The Impreza's year was especially impressive with sales jumping more than 55 percent compared with 2016. It was also the best year for Outback. Subaru credits some of its strong December to its "Share the Love" promotion that donated $250 of each new car purchase to one of a selection of charities. But a big part of Subaru's sales success has to be due to the fact that most of its products are in the hottest car market around: crossovers. The fact that its products are highly competitive against other similar vehicles certainly helps too. This is partly evident by the fact that year-to-year, every crossover model with the exception of the aging Forester saw a sales increase. Meanwhile, every traditional car (Legacy, WRX/STI and BRZ) with the exception of the redesigned Impreza had lower sales for the year. So if you ever wonder why companies aren't racing to release new sedans and coupes, this is why. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Subaru takes another look back, this time at the 2004 WRX STI

Here we have the followup to the rally-mimicking Impreza 22B STI that Subaru recently chronicled in its Vintage Garage series: the 2004 Impreza WRX STI. Displacement for the boxer four was upped from 2.2 liters to 2.5, and after noticing how many buyers had installed larger turbochargers on their WRXs, Subaru decided to bolt on one in-house. That gave the final product 300 horsepower and a 0-to-60 mile-per-hour run of just 4.6 seconds.
It was stiffer, it's body from nose to front doors was penned by Peter Stephens, he of the McLaren F1, it came with a driver-controlled center differential, driver-activated cooling spray for the turbos and 300 pound-feet of torque. This is a curio from a time when, after a new WRX STI came out, you started poring through magazines to see how the Mitubishi Evo was going to respond. You can find out more about it in the video below.

Toyota FT-86 Open Concept leaves us feeling flushed

When last we checked in on our topless would-be hero, the Toyota FT-86 convertible had been reportedly placed on "indefinite hold." That was back in early October, not long after Toyota had trotted out the rear-wheel-drive canvasback to Scion dealers as a possible future product carrot if they decided not to turn in their franchises. And yet, we're here at the Tokyo Motor Show, where Toyota has taken the time to at least repaint the FT-86 Open Concept in "Flash Red," if not build a whole other car (the original Geneva showcar was white). It's enough to make our heads spin like a teenager on the verge of a breakup. Will they? Won't they?
At this point, we still don't know any more than you do - the last word we heard out of Toyota was not encouraging, although the story was that the program could still be fast-tracked if management had a change of heart. As the car has never been seen before in Japan, perhaps Toyota is merely extending its domestic audience a courtesy view before it lines this showcar in mothballs, or maybe they're still trying to make a decision on its fate and gauging public reaction on the homefront.
Interestingly, in a new story published today, Automotive News quotes Subaru brand boss Yasuyuki Yoshinaga downplaying the likelihood of a production model, saying flatly "We make the car, so if we don't make it, it can't happen." The executive went on to note, "Our engineering department told me that losing the entire roof requires a complete redesign of the structure. It would need a big change." Given that such a car would probably trade in rather small volumes, that sounds like a significant hurtle.