American Subaru parts specialist Crawford Performance has produced a beefed-up Overland version of the XV that takes inspiration from its Baja Crosstrek Desert Racer. The uprated XV – or Crosstrek, as it’s known in the States – stands two inches taller on competition-spec aluminium struts and solid top mounts, and wears a set of chunky off-road tyres capable of tackling the sort of duned wildernesses its inspiration goes racing on.
This being a car designed to venture out into the desert, there’s also a front bull bar with a trio of spotlights, which are backed by LED lights mounted around the windscreen – y’know, so you can spot dunes from a mile-off after sunset. The firm has also added metal underneath to protect the transmission from impacts and protecting side sill bars, as well as a rear metal guard at the back to maximise the all-round defence.
Crawford Performance – who teamed up with Subaru of America to build its thoroughbred Baja machine – doesn’t go the whole hog and do an engine swap of the XV’s flat-four for a Baja-spec 2.5-litre. But it does at least offer upgrades for the XV’s 2.0, including a pair of intake spacers, claimed to enable quicker throttle response and a 10hp lift in power – which would take UK spec XVs over the 200hp mark. There’s also an air-oil separator to keep the intake clean even on the roughest terrain.
Add a new exhaust backbox that ditches the silencer, slap on a yellow and gold body colour scheme and you have yourself a very capable, vocal and awesome-looking XV. Better still, the transformation is relatively affordable, with the most expensive and substantial mod – that suspension kit – costing $549.95 (£437). Go for the full package and the combined result is, we can all agree, a very far cry from the practical but not particularly exciting standard car.
While Crawford Performance is located in the US, it does deliver to the UK, so any XV owner handy with the spanners could recreate a similarly dune-ready machine this side of the pond. It would certainly make for quite the build thread on PH…
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