Wednesday 14th July 2010

Subaru Gets Serious About Design

Bold, clean looks are the key to broadening Subaru's appeal, says design boss

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Subaru is set to dump its frumpy image and get serious about making cars that actually look, er, nice in a bid to appeal to a wider audience.

Until now Subaru has always been an engineering-led company, with design taking a back seat. The result - apart from flashes of inspiration such as the SVX coupe and some early fast Imprezas - has been some rather frumpy designs and a confused brand image.

Now, Subaru design boss Osamu Namba - who joined Subaru in 2008, a decade after founding his own styling studio - wants to change all that and bring the Subaru brand to the masses with a unified design language.

"We want to broaden the appeal to make it accessible to more than a small, loyal crowd," Namba told US mag Auto Week in a recent interview. "We need to add a more contemporary element."

Subaru's core four-wheel drive and boxer engines will remain, but Namba reckons that Subaru needs to react more rapidly to market trends - and also to inject some style into the styling.

"I don't want it to be just something serious and boring," he says. "A lot of people don't know that Subaru brand. If we can make styling more accessible, it will bring them in."

None of Namba's designs are yet on the road, but the recent Hybrid Tourer concept (pictured) is one of his, and points the way for the future look of Subarus. "We have to show the function through design with simple, clean lines," says Namba. "I want a very simple design that exhibits strength."

If you're not fussed about fancy design, but a blown boxer four and all-wheel drive do it for you, there's plenty of affordable Subaru-based excitement to be found in the PistonHeads classifieds.

[FWDRacer]

Jaguar XF Front End - Alfa Brera back end. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.