Subaru has lost the plot

COMMENT

The heyday of Subaru could be considered one of the golden eras of motoring.

Few mainstream brands captured the hearts and dreams of the public quite like Subaru did back in the 1990s, when the late Colin McCrae was at the helm of a GC8 WRX and the road versions were carving up V8s like they were made of cheese.

The WRX, Liberty and Forester established a cult following so large and so loyal that it would have given Scientologists nightmares.

While the WRX tore up the rally circuit, early Foresters were out conquering terrain usually reserved for purpose-built off-roaders and then hassling sports cars on the way back into town, particularly if they were fitted with a turbocharger.

The Liberty evolved from a rally slayer into one of the most capable and versatile mid-size sedans on the market, especially when it came to the turbo GTs and six-cylinder Rs, whereas the high-riding Outback just got on with being one of the best all-round vehicles money could buy.

It was a glorious time full of fun, performance, adventures, passion and thrummy engine notes.

But then, somewhere along the line, everything changed and now Subaru is on a very different path – one breaking the hearts of fanatics and enthusiasts everywhere.

Where the Subaru catalogue was once full of lustworthy models full of character and sex appeal – think WRX, WRX STi, Forester XT, Liberty GT, Outback 3.6R, etc – we now see a range full of admittedly very good but ultimately bland offerings propped up by just one genuinely engaging model: the BRZ coupe.

This isn’t just some prejudiced motoring writer’s literal tirade, this is a former Liberty GT owner’s plea for change – one who’s tired of Subaru continuing down a drab and dreary road, relying almost solely on its symmetrical all-wheel drive system as the key point of difference for its models.

Make no mistake: there isn’t a bad vehicle in the current Subaru portfolio. They’re all refined, pleasant to drive, safe, capable and secure options for those in the market for a new car.

The current Outback XT for instance could well be the most well-rounded vehicle on the market; a genuine quiver killer for families who do a bit of everything without focusing on anything in particular.

But with 183kW/350Nm on tap, it really ought to be quicker than it is, its engagement nobbled by Subaru’s obsession with continuously variable transmissions which, whatever the brand says, will never be as fun or performance-friendly as a traditional dual-clutch or even torque converter auto.

Try to launch an Outback XT off the mark in hurry and it will be bested each and every time by a standard dual-cab 4x4 ute up to about 70km/h, at which point the transmission gets its head in the game and actually harnesses the engine’s torque rather than just aimlessly spiking the revs and hoping for the best.

The world has been begging Subaru to bring back a performance-flavoured Forester for years now and what did we finally get just this month… a jacked-up Levorg wagon fitted with a meagre lean-burn engine.

Thankfully the Levorg Layback, as it’s called, is reserved only for the Japanese market, because no die-hard Subaru fan wants that sort of nonsense.

But perhaps the biggest disappointment off all recently is the latest WRX and, in turn, the axing of a new STi flagship.

Allow me to stipulate the new WRX is a very polished and capable sports sedan, but at no point does it actually feel like a WRX – it’s too quiet, not powerful enough and the gear ratios are all wrong, which nobbles its real-world performance.

Why Australia and most other markets outside of Japan missed out on the 202kW/375Nm tune of the new 2.4-litre engine is beyond us and has never actually been addressed by Subaru Australia, but it’s a massive missed opportunity.

With no STi on the horizon, Subaru should’ve moulded the latest WRX into a V8-poaching, Hyundai N-car killing, 400Nm all-paw weapon full of attitude and rally-bred heritage, but instead all we got was an extra 5kW and controversial styling underpinned by an admittedly more capable platform.

Subaru seems to have evolved from a purist brand into yet another volume-centric corporate citizen desperately trying to cling to what once made it an icon without actually recapturing that same spirit.

Subaru makes good and even sometimes brilliant cars, and yet only one of them elicits a genuine smile from behind the wheel, which is why anyone looking for a mainstream performance car or SUV with spades of character will probably look elsewhere these days.