#Subaru

Being relatively small for a mainstream automaker and with limited resources to keep up with evolving industry trends, Subaru latched onto auto giant Toyota for help in the electric vehicle realm. The only electrified model in Subaru’s lineup, the Crosstrek Hybrid, is a marriage of Subaru body to Toyota technology.

Far bigger things loom on the horizon for the two; namely, a pair of jointly developed electric crossovers — one of which, apparently, has a name.

Known for having one of the leanest inventories in the industry, Subaru has marked yet another date date on its calendar, no doubt hoping that once production resumes in Indiana, it won’t have to turn out the lights again.

The Japanese manufacturer initially shut down its Lafayette assembly plant for the period of one week back in late March. We now know how optimistic that was. May 11th is the new return date.

Subaru is joining the long list of automakers closing shop on account of the coronavirus. Japanese production is being suspended at the automaker’s main plaint in the country’s Gunma prefecture from April 11th through the first of May. It’s also idling the Oizumi engine facility as it announces plans to extend the suspension of its U.S. facility in Indiana. The plant will now be idled through April 20th.

While some of the closures are due to social distancing obligations, the rest is down to parts allocation. Subaru is heavily reliant on components manufactured in China, and it’s still not clear how things are actually going there. What is clear is that Subaru (and plenty of other manufacturers) can’t do without its robust industrial sector operating at full strength. Subaru CFO Toshiaki Okada said in February that “it’s impossible to manufacture cars without China.”

While Toyota and Subaru are officially developing a new generation of the 86/BRZ, neither model from the current generation looks long for this world. The Toyobaru twins’ placement as an affordable sports car meant volumes were never going to be stellar but the last few years have been particularly unkind. Inside the United States (the duo’s strongest market), the Toyota half of the pair hasn’t managed to break 10,000 deliveries since 2016 — something the BRZ has never achieved. Last year, Toyota’s coupe was sitting at just 3,398 units while the Subaru only sold 2,334.

But the final nail in their coffin could be the new special edition that’s coming out of Europe. Subaru is introducing the conclusive-sounding “Final Edition” of the BRZ for Germany.

In an effort to build more things where they’re needed, Subaru of Indiana Automotive will spend $158 million expanding its Lafayette plant. Construction begins this summer.

The cash covers a standalone service parts facility and an add-on to the existing plant, home to the Ascent, Outback, Legacy, and Impreza. That addition will see the automaker’s only non-Japanese facility build the transmissions needed to serve a growing market.

As you’ve read here, Subaru expects to spend 2020 selling.

Turning the five-door Impreza into the lifted Crosstrek was a brilliant bit of strategy for Subaru. Sales of the jacked compact soared following its late-2012 release, rising year after year until 2018, where it managed 144,384 U.S. sales.

While the model slipped last year, Subaru is not content to leave things be. Later this year, the automaker will answer a long-standing cry from Subaru loyalists and endow the Crosstrek with moar power.

Subaru plans on delivering the goods in 2021 when it debuts the next incarnation of its flagship performance model. Rather than incrementally improving the WRX line as it has in the past, Subie looks to be kicking down the stable doors to drag as many horses as possible back to the factory for canning beneath the WRX STI’s hood.

A recent report from Forbes claims Subaru’s engineering team has targeted a minimum of 400 horsepower and 361 lb-ft of torque for the next STI. While the outlet initially referenced the motor as entirely new, it later clarified that it was technically the same 2.4-liter FA24 that currently powers the brand’s Ascent crossover — and was already assumed be adapted for use on the next WRX among those paying close attention. However, it’ll have to undergo quite a bit of work to deliver the figures being claimed.

Like it or not, Subaru plans to make up for lost time by delving deep into the world of electrification. In a technical briefing Monday, the automaker outlined a plan to draw 40 percent of its global sales from electric or hybrid vehicles by the beginning of the next decade.

Currently, the automaker only sells the Crosstrek Hybrid, but that will change as its newly strengthened partnership with Toyota starts to bear fruit.

Late Friday, just before news of a resurrected Hummer broke, we regaled you with the story of the Subaru Forester Ultimate Customized Kit Special edition— a flashy Forester with no backstory that appeared at the brand’s Singapore Motor Show booth.

A Subaru bearing a expletive acronym was bound to make waves, and those ripples apparently reached the offices of Subaru of America. Company execs of the wholesome, family-friendly automaker were not amused.

“Famous flicks, Mr. Connery,” the fake Alex Trebek once said to the fake Scottish actor on SNL. The unspoken word in that long-ago sketch isn’t something you’d encourage your young kids to say, but it did help the career of many beloved stand-up comics.

Which brings us, oddly, to Subaru. The (predominantly) all-wheel-drive brand has crafted a very wholesome image of itself over the years, delighting children and seniors alike with its heavy use of canine actors in its ads. But there’s nothing wholesome about a vehicle that appeared this week at the Singapore Motor Show: the Forester Ultimate Customized Kit Special edition.

FUCKS, for short.

You read on Friday how Subaru exceeded its U.S. sales goal for 2019 by 117 vehicles, pushing its American volume to the highest point in the automaker’s history — up 2.9 percent from 2018, and more than 200 percent greater than its tally just a decade prior. A hard thing to achieve in a market that cooled off in 2019.

Subaru doesn’t see last year as a high water mark, however. For 2020, the brand has even loftier expectations, but everything will have to fall into place for it to happen.

Back in early October, after Subaru’s 93-month streak of year-over-year sales increases came to an end for a variety of reasons, Subaru of America CEO Thomas J. Doll said the brand was still “on target to achieve our 700,000-vehicle sales goal for 2019, marking 12 consecutive years of sales increases.”

Despite a cooling new vehicle market, Subaru’s meteoric rise in the U.S. and its stable of all-wheel drive vehicles made the sales target appear an achievable goal. Turns out it was.

Subaru just barely cleared the bar, earning it another record.

There was a time when no one out-weirded Subaru. Gonzo digital gauges, windows within windows, and a general Birkenstock image cemented them as the choice of the grains-n-granola crowd. These days, the cars still march to a different beat but appeal to a much wider audience. The company’s winning sales streak stands as proof.

For 2020, the Pleiades brand has tweaked its Impreza sedan ever so slightly … but that’s not why it stands as today’s pick. It is, so far as our research shows, the cheapest way to buy a brand-new all-wheel drive car in America.

Recently I reached out to you, dear readers, for some suggestions on replacing a 2012 Subaru Outback. The wagon has occupied my driveway for the past two years, but, for reasons outlined previously, it’s time for it to go. My initial idea for a replacement was a Kia Niro, but that didn’t seem like it was going to pan out. So I turned to the real experts around here.

Comments poured in, and four suggestions were clear. Let’s narrow things down a bit.

The unappetizingly named Subaru Levorg (a portmanteau of Legacy Revolution Touring) has always been a model we wanted to grace our shores. With used WRX wagons getting harder to find than the Lost City of Atlantis, we could certainly use it in North America. Yet we’ll have to continue going without, as Japan still doesn’t seem interested in exporting the model here.

While unfortunate, Levorg can still serve a purpose. Subaru debuted the prototype at the Tokyo Motor Show this week, proving the automaker wasn’t joking about the styling it previewed via its latest concepts — especially the Viziv Tourer Wagon. Levorg is also giving us a taste of the next-generation WRX, as the two are closely related.