No Reserve,easy Miles,runs Great,equipped Nicely,safe & Practical,rare Find,wow! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

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.

UK designer to make WRX Concept-aping body kit for production Subaru

Remember the Subaru WRX Concept shown at the 2013 New York Auto Show, the one almost everyone loved but no one expected Subaru to make? Indeed, that Parnassian "design statement" led to a production design that came from a good middle class neighborhood known for its office parks and pasture land. UK designer Michael Bond is offering to change that, the man behind the yet-to-be-produced Rumbler "Superhero Utility Vehicle" touting the Subaru WRX Concept 13, which would take a customer's new WRX and turn it into something pretty close to the original concept.
That means new front and rear clips, including a redesigned rear diffuser to increase downforce, but a spoiler can be installed if the buyer decides that what he wants. The car won't be an exact replica of the NYIAS concept since that would infringe on Subaru's intellectual property, but it isn't clear yet how the design would be altered. Bond's site says that once he gets 50 confirmed orders, his team will order a WRX and begin the process of creating the new bodywork. It is claimed that once work begins, it will be four to six months to "[present] a completed model for public view."
Bond says the price will come down depending on the number of orders beyond 50, but doesn't give any indication of how much those first 50 cars could cost. If you're keen, though, head over to the site and fill out the enquiry form. Who knows if the Concept 13 will happen, but so far this is the best chance you have of getting what could have been.

Subaru Viziv Performance Concept | Next WRX ... with driver assist?

VIZIV is a portmanteau, an invented moniker that Subaru has affixed to a series of concept cars it has shown over the past few years. The name is intended to combine the notions of vision and innovation inherent in these fantastical vehicles, which, like all concepts, presage a future that never comes. How else to describe a five-passenger, scissor-doored, diesel, hybrid, electric, all-wheel-drive, shooting brake? These reveries and chimeras have, in successive iterations, become a bit more ... realistic, or at least closer to the realm of possible. Witness the Viziv-7 shown last year at the L.A. Auto Show, quite clearly a near-production-ready preview of the brand's forthcoming three-row, seven-passenger crossover — and a long-expected replacement for the ghastly, Hercule Poirot-faced Tribeca from some years back. So what are we to make of the latest Viziv, the Viziv Performance Concept, just unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show? A muscular, flare-fendered, four-door sport sedan, the VPC is, in Subaru's own words, intended to "deliver enjoyment and peace of mind" to its customers while evoking a design philosophy of "DYNAMIC x SOLID." [Subaru insists that it is not yelling, merely being emphatic.] The vehicle is also meant to integrate the latest in driver-assistance technology, built around Subaru's EyeSight distance cruise control and collision prevention system. It is surprisingly attractive, for a Subaru, which is to say, more than simply functional and unpretentious and rugged with a smattering of premium materials. It looks kind of French. "We utilize traditional Subaru shapes like the flared fenders and the hood scoop," says Mamoru Ishii, general manager of the design department's product planning division. "But we wanted to enhance the three-dimensional sculptural forms, to express more of the shadows." So it looks like a Subaru. But it also looks kind of ... fast. So is this thing the new WRX? Size and stature wise, that supposition would make sense. Especially since that model is now a wholly separate vehicle line spun off of the Impreza platform some years back and that the next generation is expected to reappear, in novel form and with its own identity, for the 2020 model year, making a conceptual appearance now timeline-proper. "It's a design study for a sport sedan, and WRX is one of them," says Ishii. "It's not so far from the next generation." Not so far away, but not so close.