RE: Subaru Gets Serious About Design
Discussion
Someone should park a new XJ outside Subaru HQ let them see what can be done to a brand if they get the design of there cars right, the sales figures speck for themselves. They are in with Toyota surely they could help them out? And what about this Celica Impreza cross what happened to that? it could have been the start of a good looking design for them.
jains15 said:
ctallchris said:
Broad appeal = generic 
Agree, try to please everyone but satisfy no-one.I love (hate?) the marketing b
ks and lack of joined up thinking in these CEO press releases."We've spent literally decades building up an admittedly small, but loyal and fanatical following. So now what we fancy doing is making a type of car that historically we are unused to, and in the process piss of said loyal followers!"
it makes no sense whatsoever. Lotus did it last week, subaru this week. next you're gonna tell me that Porsche are planning to make a huge, spectaularly ugly four door and try and make it look like a 911! Oh...wait
Is the car industry in cahoots to basically p
s off every car fan on the planet?
patmahe said:
Nothing other than the badge identifies it as a Subaru, if you showed it to me badgeless I'd have guessed it was a Kia concept. Not that thats necessarily a bad thing but surely you'd want some bit of brand identity in your cars rather than looking like anyone could have made it.
ETA: I actually like the current Subaru's, Legacy especially, because they are different
Whilst I personally think that Legacy is the pinnacle of Subaru's design, it's not the current model anymore. The current one is hideous and because of that, Subaru has lost me as a customer.ETA: I actually like the current Subaru's, Legacy especially, because they are different
I used to own an Impreza 2 door Type R (Jap spec P1) and styling wise this was their peak as far as I am concerned. Everything else has been downhill since then. I understand the need to expand their appeal as every company wants the same thing, more sales but car companies shouldn't forget the core values that made them successful in the first place.
The engineering was never in question, all they needed to do to widen the appeal was sharpen the interiors a little and make them a litte bit more efficient. Countless redesigns and "softening the brand to appeal to a wider audience" is all marketing bs. They should have stuck to a winning formula which was to producing decent cars based on rally bred technology which could keep pace with supercars for a quarter of the price.
The engineering was never in question, all they needed to do to widen the appeal was sharpen the interiors a little and make them a litte bit more efficient. Countless redesigns and "softening the brand to appeal to a wider audience" is all marketing bs. They should have stuck to a winning formula which was to producing decent cars based on rally bred technology which could keep pace with supercars for a quarter of the price.
300bhp/ton said:
Subaru said:
Bold, clean looks are the key to broadening Subaru's appeal, says design boss
Shame, as the pics shown here only show a dull, slightly ugly and awkward design. Topped off with silly doors that will never see the light of day on a mass produced production variant.Seems to me that since 2000 Subaru have really lost their way. In their quest for mass market appeal the the cars and the hardcore image have been softened and they've failed to the keep the impreza up with the evo. They've made some horrendous design choices - replacing the 'classic' design with the bug eye did huge damage to the brand image literally over night. The hatch has grown on me but park it next to a 22b and tell me thats progress. Maybe they couldnt have gone on forever making yobbish rally reps for the playstation generation but they've lost the very thing which made them different and replaced it with mediocre.
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