Thank you Subaru for wising up and realizing that the customer is right. Customers think your new cars are ugly, too feminine, and won't buy, unless at the assistance of massive discounts.
The new Impreza and Legacy are abominations of uglyness. There is no cohesive design anguage anythere, just a hodgepodge of contrasting design elements from other cars. Your new cars also feel cheap, especially to existing Subau owners. The plastics feel cheap, you stopped clear coating the inside of the doors like before, and the seats are even worse than the bad ones you've always had (too flat, not enough cush).
The 2005-2007 Legacy GT and 2005 Imprezas were the last good body you made. I sold Subarus for 3 years and have a 2005 Legacy GT Wagon and was thinking I will just have to keep it forever, because Subaru refuses to release anything attractive upto this point.
This new car a a great step towards correcting the wrongs of the past (particularly the nose). Keep up the good work.
Someone was bashing CVT earlier. Nothing wrong with CVTs if they are properly maintained. Problem is Subaru owners tend to abuse and neglect their cars. (To them its strictly an object of utility) Subaru built the first mass production car with a CVT back in the 80s, called the Justy. It had decent service life, no worse than a regular automatic, but it was definately more expensive to repair/replace than a typical automatic gearbox when it did go wrong. It's a matter of scale, few were made (Subaru was still a small car company then) therefore replacement parts were expensive, particularly the older it got.
The overdone T2 version of the "Wong Fei Huang" soundtrack definately doesn't do it for me. I'm pretty disappointed. I was expecting something worth watching, something at least on par with South Korea. There's thousands of individual hobbyist attempts with better dexterity, balance. They definately throttled the performance back because the robots were so wobbly with their feet bearly off the ground. The pendulum effect just isn't being handled with software, so they opt for slow enough movements for the effect to work itself out on its own. If this is China's best, then other developed nations (particularly US, Japan and Korea) got nothing to worry about. Better luck next time China. Bother us when you got something worth our attention.
Everyone who keeps asking BBC to leave Top Gear alone clearly doesn't get it.
The BBC is an extention of the UKs far left-wing government. Top Gear stands for everything the BBC opposes: cars, supercars, hoonage, political incorrectness and freedom of speech in general. BBC would love to kill Top Gear, but it can't, it's the most popular show aired in Europe. Everytime they try to encroach on the show, Top Gear fans ratchet up their support.
Top Gear continualy wins awards pushing aside other shows BBC deems infinitely more deserving and important. Everyone else who makes "factual programming", the segment that Top Gear falls into, considers it a slap to their face. Why? Because the genreal public finds Top Gear immensely entertaining, and whatever boring message someone elses "factual programming" contains, cannot be considered entertaining. Since they can't compete, they try to eliminate the competition. Top Gear wasn't considered a threat in the early years, (watch some 2002 episodes, there's only a dozen or two spectators in the audience.) but now it's a force to be reckoned with.
It's the classic tale of "freedom of speech" being attacked by the far-left. The far-left is always for "freedom of speech", as long as it doesn't counter their views. If it does, then it's labeled "offensive speech" and should be eliminated in any way possible, no matter how sneaky and underhanded. This story about the housing project is just a new wrinkle in the saga of the left-wing war against Top Gear.
It's no mystery. The far left always using it's feel good campain of helping the environment and the lower classes to justify their means. In this case it's expensive, fancy, eco-friendly housing for low-income classes (probably comprised of mostly welfare dependent recent immigrants). I'm not making this up. Read the masterplan:
"The housing provision at Dunsfold Park will be privately funded by Dunsfold Park Ltd and will be diverse enough to cater for a wide range of needs as follows:
- Market affordable housing, a percentage of which will cater for first time buyers and shared ownership units
- Rental housing including affordable housing for low income families
- Housing for the elderly, ranging from independent to full care
- Housing suitable for those with disabilities and special needs."
They aren't even trying to put a veil on this one. I'm counting on Clarkson to expose these people publically for what they are, for all the world to see, and do so in style becoming of Clarkson.
The BBC is slowly trying to kill Clarkson and company. First with public safety, then budget cuts, then mandetory diversification (female, ethnocentric co-star). It wont work. You can cut and trim all you want, Clarkson always find a way to make the show entertaining. Something the rest of the BBC can't do very well. Put up the good fight Clarkson! I'm always rooting for you!
Is this car even made in America? I haven't done any research on this particular car, but every single EV car I've seen announced (apart from Telsa) is a rebadged Chinese EV car. Some are already being sold by independent distributors here in Calfornia.
Chinese cars are already here folks, and you don't even know it. They come, and will continue to come, in under the radar as other makes. I don't mind the freedom of choice, but these things are already extremely dangerous (safety wise) in their traditional IC form, let alone a new, untested EV form. Gullible liberals that know nothing about cars are eager to drive around in something other than a Prius for their smug pissing contests, not realizing, or perhaps not even caring for, the danger they maybe putting themselves into. Do a search on Chinese crash test on Youtube and see what I mean. You might as well drive a box truck into a wall carrying a full load of bricks.
I personally don't recommend purchasing any of these low volume independent EV cars (that includes Tesla, although their sedan could change my mind), until they get 4+ star safety rating and several 100K road miles driven. I'm not expect the car itself to do a serveral 100K miles, but they need to do that amount of testing just like other top teir auto manufacturers. Don't expect that from these Chinese rebadged cars.
You my friend are right on the money. That's exactly why I love Spyker. It's luxury car pornography. Cater to those who "get it", forget those who don't. It's the same reason I love Confederate motocycles.
Good job Spkyer! Keep up what you are doing and don't deviate! Focus pays off in the end...
From the back and side it's a near carbon copy of current Lexus LS, front is closer to previous Lexus LS,rear seat has same exact vanity mirrors in the headliner. The only thing separating this car from the LS is the overabundance of ill-mated wood in the interior.
Ummmm. This has been done before, san tracks, but bigger offroad wheels. It's called the Wheelman. (and Wheelman Bushpig which uses 2 stroke for more power) It's been around for at least 7 years.
Can't find the original manufacturer website. Looks like distributors have flooded the Google Search.
I've rode one in the past. It's amazing fun and performance.
This Scarpar is just isn't fast enough. Approach angles aren't extreme enough. Overly complicated. The only thing it probably would do better than Wheelman is snow.
Wow another study that points out the obvious. What will these analysts / scientists come up with next?
I'm not going to bother reading the study (especially if reg is required), but I'm fairly certain it will fail to address the most important point...
Why would anyone want to give business to a company that so OBVIOUSLY lobbied to steal tax payer money?
I, and I'm sure I'm not alone, refuse to support companies that were / are looking for a bailout. It's these sentiments that contribute to loss of sales. People are voting with their wallets that GM and Chrysler must die. That's why Ford is up, because they refuse to take the money, less to do with increases in quality. People like giving their business to responsible businesses. (I can't believe I'm calling Ford responsible, as they blow through shareholders money at unbelievable rates in the past, but compared to GM and Chrysler..) Nobody likes bums.
GM and Chrysler took our billions, they asked for more. Just like a drugged up bum. We in the automotive blogging commenting community called them on this time and time again. They are so dependent on our "free money"...why feed the addiction? They will never stop, so let them die.
If you work for GM/Chrysler, their suppliers or dealers, you have my sympathies, but the rest of us need to survive to be a help in the future.
AWESOME! The GTI is nearly a perfect car. (Welll, time will tell in the reliability department, but in initial quality I'd say it's perfect) Now the car will only get better. With AWD, VW will solve the ONLY remaining problem I've had with the GTI, getting the power down.
Like nearly everyone else in this thread, I agree that the R36 is too pricey for the performance. Nobody wanted the V6, the turbo four was more than capable, what they wanted was the AWD. Now hopefully VW will get smart enough to ship this not just to Europe, but to the US. Then I might actually buy a VW product. (And I sold them for 1.5 years)
As per usual a very very disappointing design from Subaru. It's what happens when you let focus groups dictate your design. You get a disgustingly confused hodgepodge of design elements all rolled into one car. I see more Avalon and Maxima in there that Subaru. This car has no idea what it's trying to be.
Subaru, do what other brands do. Settle on one aggressive design philosophy and run with it, stick to it and don't deviate from it for a couple years. And no, your Imprezas don't count as aggressive, they're just stupid. Yeah you can "give them all away" and always show positive growth, but what have you really accomplished? Maybe you could actually design a desirable Impreza and stop this absolute crime against your Legacy. Yeah...some legacy. (pun intended)
You know how to increase sales. No not a new body design. (There's zero wrong with the current one.) DIESEL! Yeah I think people might be just a tad interested in the European models that get 70% better fuel economy of my Legacy wagon.
I sold Subarus for 3 years. It's the best brand overall by far of the 5 brands I've sold. I've had a Legacy (original sedan) and SVX and am a current owner of a 2005 Legacy GT Wagon 5M/T. Best freaking car Subaru has ever made. I'm just going to stick with my wagon and keep giving all my money to the gas companies instead of you.
"I have a MacBook Pro and an Xbox 360 and I would like to get a 20- to 24-inch display that will support both devices. The speakers should be inbuilt, or there should be an aux out on the display to hook up external speakers. Help! Please!"
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The new Impreza and Legacy are abominations of uglyness. There is no cohesive design anguage anythere, just a hodgepodge of contrasting design elements from other cars. Your new cars also feel cheap, especially to existing Subau owners. The plastics feel cheap, you stopped clear coating the inside of the doors like before, and the seats are even worse than the bad ones you've always had (too flat, not enough cush).
The 2005-2007 Legacy GT and 2005 Imprezas were the last good body you made. I sold Subarus for 3 years and have a 2005 Legacy GT Wagon and was thinking I will just have to keep it forever, because Subaru refuses to release anything attractive upto this point.
This new car a a great step towards correcting the wrongs of the past (particularly the nose). Keep up the good work.
Someone was bashing CVT earlier. Nothing wrong with CVTs if they are properly maintained. Problem is Subaru owners tend to abuse and neglect their cars. (To them its strictly an object of utility) Subaru built the first mass production car with a CVT back in the 80s, called the Justy. It had decent service life, no worse than a regular automatic, but it was definately more expensive to repair/replace than a typical automatic gearbox when it did go wrong. It's a matter of scale, few were made (Subaru was still a small car company then) therefore replacement parts were expensive, particularly the older it got.
-Trevor Bommersbach