It’s Subaru’s birthday: 7 things worth knowing about 70 years of Subaru

1 – Subarus came into being

Thus, the birth of the Subaru name took place in 1953, although the brand has its origins in the Fuji Heavy Industries company. It was founded in 1915 – under yet another name – as a Japanese fighter aircraft developer. After the Second World War, they also started to get an eye for the car industry and when a first design for a car rolled out there, a name had to be thought of. That became Subaru in 1953, and then appeared on a model for the first time in 1954: the Subaru 1500. It never went into series production, but was therefore the reason for the birth of the Subaru brand name. Officially, Subaru has only been called ‘Subaru Motor Corporation’ since 2007. Until then it was always Fuji Heavy Industries.

2 – The name and logo with the six stars

Subaru’s name is Japanese for the ‘Pleiades’. That is the name of a Seven Constellation (a formation of seven stars) in the constellation of Taurus. So why does the logo only contain six stars? Typically, only six of the constellation’s seven stars are visible to the naked eye. And, by the time Subaru was conceived, Fuji Heavy Industries had become a collaboration of six companies. Each company was represented in the logo by one visible star from the Pleiades, so the Subaru logo has always consisted of the same six stars.

Subaru 360, the brand’s first production car.

3 – First production model

The first series production model on which that logo proudly adorned was the Subaru 360. And it was immediately hit. It complied with the then existing Kei-car regulations for small cars in Japan and was produced almost 400,000 times in just under thirteen years (from ’58 to ’71) – not bad for a product of a new brand. The 360 ​​was immediately good for international furore, because about 10,000 copies were shipped to the United States and a number also ended up in Europe – and in the Netherlands. The car caused a sensation, especially in the United States, since the home market at that time made cars of completely different sizes. People therefore had some doubts about the crash resistance of the car with a two-stroke 360 ​​cc 2-cylinder …

4 – The boxer engine and all-wheel drive

However, the United States would later become the second most important market for the brand. Not in the least because Subaru soon after the introduction of its 360 also started working with ‘more mature’ models. The year 1965 marks the birth of the brand’s first four-cylinder boxer engine, followed by Subaru’s S-AWD (symmetrical all wheel drive) in 1972. Both techniques would become the pillars of the brand and soon found a place in almost all its products, on which Subaru grew into a name with a do it all-image. A very large audience never warmed to that image, partly because Subaru largely kept its activities within Japan. Of the five factories the brand once had, one is outside that country, in the United States.

Previously a characteristic alternative to a fast Golf or a cheaper alternative to, for example, a BMW M3.

5 – Subaru World Rally Team

Globally, the brand really came into the spotlight with its World Rally Team. It took part in the WRC (the world rally driving championship) from 1990 and managed to win three drivers’ world titles and three constructors’ championships with Colin McRae and Petter Solberg, among others. All successes were achieved with Subaru’s Impreza, which is still the most recognizable model to this day with its blue paint and gold wheels. In 2008, when the banking crisis set in, the rally team ceased to exist. The then generation of the fast Impreza STI for the street would be the last, after which the combination of ‘Impreza’ and ‘STI’ was dropped and had to make way for the successor WRX. It would never be as popular as the models of yesteryear.

6 – Subaru in the Netherlands

Certainly not in the Netherlands. Where the 1990s STIs were known to be quite potent in relation to the not too high purchase prices, the now introduced CO2 emissions-based purchase tax was disastrous for Subaru’s four-wheel drive horsepower cannon. Certainly in modern times, Subaru plays a role in the margin in the Netherlands, since the brand never delivered more than 1,646 cars in one year from 2001 to 2022. This was especially different in the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s, when Subaru consistently sold more than 4,000 units per year in the Netherlands. Even then, however, the Japanese had to rely on models that emitted less: the Mini Jumbo and Justy are still – in the Netherlands – the most popular cars that the brand ever sold.

Do it allimage or not: in the Netherlands, Subaru grew up with a little one.

7 – Striking models

Both toppers are compact and unremarkable models, where ‘unremarkable’ is usually a good description of Subaru’s product range anyway. Nothing to the detriment: models such as the Forester and Outback were and are quite characteristic, but they probably won’t stay on the retina for a second too long with the average non-car enthusiast. Yet Subaru also has some nice crazy stuff in its oeuvre, such as the SVX and the XT. The brand also invented, as it were, the crossover segment with the Outback, which is a roughened and raised Legacy.

Due to the aforementioned ‘CO2 bpm’, for example, the Outback has long ceased to be interesting in the Netherlands: the brand has sold just over a hundred since 2020. The XV and Forester – still with a boxer engine – are also not exactly good for the numbers, but perhaps Subaru can turn the tide in the EV era. The delivery of the fully electric Solterra has now well and truly begun, and the Japanese have more electrical power in store. Worldwide, they still have to rely on boxer engines and integral four-wheel drive for the time being.

Without a doubt Subaru’s craziest: the XT.