From the September 1991 issue of Car and Driver.
When Subaru commissioned Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Ital Design to sketch a luxury performance coupe in 1985, few people imagined that anything real would result. When the sketches became a show car and a market test piece, people began to wonder. But after Subaru was almost swallowed by Nissan, the smart money said that Subaru would henceforth follow the path of conservative refinement taken by the Legacy and that experimentation with new, untraditionally Subaru models was a thing of the past.
So much for the smart money. What you see here is the SVX, a $25,000 four-place exercise in 4wd high technology and marketing brinkmanship. Powered by a 230-hp, microprocessor-controlled, DOHC, four-valve-per-cylinder 3.3-liter flat six and a four-speed automatic transmission with more computer power than Albania, the SVX dives out of the fog of the car wars. If its banzai assault on the heavily defended sporting luxocoupe market is even half successful, it will not only change what the word “Subaru” means, it will raise the all-around performance ante for subsequent similar cars.
The SVX design strategy is what you might call driver-friendly high tech. This is a car that you can drive just about as fast as you want without thinking much about it. The technology-laden engine is strong enough to propel the 3614-pound SVX to 60 mph in 7.6 seconds and on to a top speed of 144 mph, aided by an electronically controlled transmission that selects the necessary cogs thoughtfully and smoothly. The sophisticated four-wheel-drive system apportions the power between the front and rear axles to match the available traction on any road surface. On dry pavement it works well enough to generate 0.86 g of cornering grip. The anti-lock brakes harness the tire traction efficiently enough to stop the SVX from 70 mph in only 172 feet.
Some other cars can match these capabilities, but few can do so while demanding so little of the driver. This isn’t to say that the SVX feels numb and disconnected. The speed-sensitive power steering, for example, is a model of response and accuracy. However, when even the windshield wipers are smart enough to automatically sweep faster at higher speeds, you know that the SVX is one of the more effortless high-performance GTs available.
To meet that goal, Subaru developed an all-new engine, chassis, and suspension and kept most of the elements of the Giugiaro design intact in the translation from show car to reality. The SVX has very little in common with any previous Subaru.
Stylewise, the topic of conversation is the treatment of the door windows. They’re a kind of jet-canopy greenhouse, “window-within-a-window” side glass. A solution like this is inevitable when windows that roll down to the sill are mandated in a car with long, shallow doors and vast sweeps of faux F-16 canopy.
With such windows and such a body—the claimed drag coefficient is 0.29—you’d expect an exotic interior. You don’t get it. The jet-fighter styling theme is mildly suggested inside by a sweeping door-to-door “bumper” of faux suede called Ecsaine, which also covers the base-model seats. But otherwise the interior is clean and simple, albeit crammed with every “luxury” feature necessary for the class, from a tilt-telescope-memory steering wheel to automatic climate control.
An optional Touring Package (about $3000) covers the seats, steering wheel, shift lever, and parking-brake grip in leather and adds an eight-way power driver’s seat, a tilt-and-retract steel sunroof, and speed-sensitive power steering. It also replaces the unobtrusive matte-black dash and console surface with plastic phony burled-wood, which the SVX driver is apt to notice less than what it covers. That’s a Panasonic AM/FM/cassette/CD audio system incorporating an 80-watt amplifier with pre-set equalizing hidden behind a hinged panel. Subaru research revealed Americans want bass, and this system’s six speakers deliver it.
No one familiar with any modern Japanese car will find anything odd about the interior, except a few definitely Subaruish items like the underdash rocker switch that controls the parking position of the broad-sweep wipers. In the normal position, they park on the stops below the hoodline; in the winter position, they park higher up, to minimize their release difficulties when snow-packed.
A major goal of the canopy look was an airy environment and full four-seat capacity. Even with those inset windows (which function well and do not obstruct vision, although they do quickly grow as tiresome as an old joke), the airiness is there for front-seaters, but the back seat is still a coupe back seat. Not much fun for six-footers. A better use for the lockable flip-down rear backrest is to open the trunk to full size—31.5 inches wide and 13.5 inches high. The trunk lid, like the lower-body cladding, is plastic, a weight-saving device. But the SVX is no lightweight at 3614 pounds, in spite of such additional weight-conscious engineering as a molded polypropylene 18.5-gallon fuel tank, which Subaru claims weighs only 24 pounds.
Power is provided by a radically updated version of the flat six used in the old XT. Displacement is up from 2.7 liters to 3.3, and the engine now breathes through 24 valves housed in two DOHC heads. Aluminum is still used for major castings. Air, fuel, and sparks are controlled by a complex system of digital and analog sensors in the engine and transmission. The engine-management system controls each three-cylinder bank as a separate entity, so it can do such tricks as shutting down one bank momentarily during upshifts to ensure smoothness.
There’s also a variable-geometry intake manifold that uses a butterfly valve in a crossover tube between the two air plenum chambers. At certain engine speeds, the valve snaps open or shut, varying the manifold’s tuning characteristics to suit the engine rpm. Result: an increase of 15 pound-feet of torque at low rpm and 30 at high rpm, giving the engine 224 pound-feet of torque at 4400 rpm to go with its 230 horsepower at 5400 rpm.
You might think the proper way to deliver this output to the ground would be with a five-speed manual transmission. Subaru decided otherwise. Shigeru Iga, chief of vehicle test and development, believes the car should do the work, not the driver. Besides, Subaru didn’t have a manual gearbox suitable for this engine.
Lifted from the Legacy, then strengthened, the SVX E4AT has a bigger torque converter, more and beefier clutch plates, a heavier lockup clutch, and a stronger input shaft. Its electronic controller monitors engine speed, front and rear wheel speeds, engine-computer inputs, transmission-oil temperature, the ABS computer data, and your right foot. So it not only decides which gear to select, but whether you need to be in power or normal shift mode, opting for power whenever you make aggressive control motions. The gear selector also has a pushbutton (labeled “manual”) that locks out first gear to minimize wheelspin on slippery surfaces. Like all the best “intelligent” systems, the transmission is transparent in operation. It requires only a few experiments with aggressive driving to realize that the shifter indeed may be smarter than the driver in selecting the right gear.
The transmission computer also regulates the distribution of power to the front and rear axles by controlling the engagement pressure on a clutchpack behind the transmission. The normal front/rear split is 60/40, but the computer can vary it radically under acceleration, braking or hard cornering.
The SVX suspension uses struts, coil springs, and anti-roll bars at both ends. The rear geometry is designed to allow a slight change in toe-in during cornering, to provide some rear-wheel steering effect.
Evaluated component by component or as an integrated whole, the SVX’s chassis is little short of exemplary. This is one smooth, competent car. It steers quickly and precisely, with only moderate understeer at the limits of adhesion, and tucks nicely back into the line as the throttle is eased. On dry pavement, it has no discernible vices, and even in gravel, snow, and deluges, can be driven fast and hard with little effort and great confidence.
Subaru hopes to sell 10,000 SVXs the first year, at a base price of about $25,000. Sounds like a fair value, although traditional perceptions of Subaru’s offerings—especially among enthusiasts—leave the place and fate of this unique automobile uncertain.
But only in the marketplace. Out on the road, where performance counts and perception does not, there’s no question where the car belongs: all alone. And, like all Subarus, going its own way.
Specifications
Specifications
1992 Subaru SVX
Vehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 2+2-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
As Tested: $28,000 (est)
ENGINE
DOHC 24-valve flat-6, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 202 in3, 3317 cm3
Power: 230 hp @ 5400 rpm
Torque: 224 lb-ft @ 4400 rpm
TRANSMISSION
4-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 11.9-in vented disc/11.4-in disc
Tires: Bridgestone Potenza RE71
225/50VR-16
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 102.8 in
Length: 182.1 in
Width: 67.9 in
Height: 51.2 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 53/31 ft3
Trunk Volume: 8 ft3
Curb Weight: 3614 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 7.6 sec
1/4-Mile: 15.7 sec @ 91 mph
100 mph: 24.8 sec
120 mph: 30.8 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 7.7 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 4.4 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.9 sec
Top Speed : 144 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 172 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.86 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 21 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City/Highway: 17/25 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED