The Subaru SVX was a sports car , made in pretty limited quantities by Subaru, upuntil 1997 (I beleve). t was a pretty striking car…it had a flat 6-cylinder engine, and a very erodynamic body. Another interesting thing was the fixed door windows-only a small part of the (two-piece) windows opened.
Anyway, i just saw one…and wonder why the car was only made for a few years.
Were they good cars?Are they collectable?
I have one. It is my daily driver, and I love it.
Typically people who have them love them, it is a great car, but had a couple tragic and fatal flaws.
It is a GT, not a sports car. It is very comfortable and smooth. Around 230 HP comming from a ‘designed from the first bolt up’ 3.3 high compression boxer. The engine is bulletproof and damn near perfect. The window design is pretty cool I think, and I like distictive cars. All wheel drive, and a great(well great in 1992, there is better now) traction control system that glues itself to the road. If fact pretty much everything was designed from scratch(Subaru was considering a lexus or Infinty style upper brand, and the SVX was a test into that market).
BUT…
They grabbed a tranny that had been designed for a mini-van, and was never meant to handle the torque and speed the flat six puts out. Particularly in hot weather, under agressive driving, the tranny sometimes only lasted 35K miles before needed replaced. With a couple tranny coolers they got a more reasonable lifetime, but they had already poisoned the market with the crappy tranny before people started to learn that. They also screwed up(in my opinion) by having no manual option. They were going toward luxury, but if they had offered the stick in a good strong tranny, I have no doubt the SVX would be an all time classic car. It was also Subarus first 3500 pound car, and the breaks and wheel bearing arn’t quite up to the job, and people have trouble with those as well.
Mine is still going strong on it’s first tranny at 125K, and the engine is still responsive and a freakin blast to whip through the mountain curvies.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Subaru SVX.
I always wanted one of them. We have some dirt-cheap ones in good shape around here that would be fun to drive.
Warning: May Contain Spoilers