Forester tS Subaru's own 'parallel import'

Subaru will introduce its long-awaited Levorg and the Forester tS to the Australian market in June, with the promise that strong sales will likely lead to other models boasting STI DNA.

While the Levorg has been on Subaru Australia's wishlist for a long time, launching the Forester tS here seems like a more recent initiative, calculated to keep buyers in the Subaru fold rather than have them looking to parallel importers for such hard-to-get models.

The Managing Director of Subaru Australia, Nick Senior, told motoring journalists during the launch of the updated Forester, Liberty and Outback that the Forester tS – a Forester XT, but with 28 special STI parts and 50 other variations over the donor car – would arrive mid-year. It's the first time FHI (Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru's parent company) has collaborated on a car with STI in this sort of way.

But it may not be the last, according to Senior.

"I'm excited about the opportunity, where we can get a car, take it off the production line, turn it into an STI," he told motoring.com.au. "If that works and we learn from it, we can do things with STI in the future.

"I hope... that five to 10 years time we'll have a much shorter gestation period than we've been seeing – or haven't been able to have access to some of the cars."

This could be taken as an indication that Subaru Australia is feeling anxious about the impact parallel importation of new cars may have on the importer's own sales locally. Obviously supply issues and ADR homologation leave the importer vulnerable to losing business to parallel imports.

However, Senior doesn't admit to being concerned, despite Subaru being one brand looking particularly susceptible to sales attrition due to parallel imports.

"It just doesn't make sense for the areas that we play in the market to bring the car in from the UK. We are considerably less expensive than the UK," he explained.

"And even Japan, by the time you [include] freight, all the duty coming in, et cetera... the fact that the satnav systems over there are Japanese – and you cannot just chip them to replace them. There's a litany of other reasons why I don't think it makes economic sense at the moment for someone to bring in cars.

"And the other thing is the exchange rate... no one can beat the exchange rate. You put today's exchange rate against a WRX in Japan and it just doesn't make sense.

"Where there is... some of the specialist stuff, that may be an area that people would look at. I don't think it's going to be high volume."

According to the local Subaru boss, the prospects of parallel importation paying off for Subaru buyers are diminishing with every passing year – and the legislation is unlikely to come into effect before the end of local manufacturing in 2017.

"From our point of view, as has been happening over the last five to 10 years, the regulations in Japan are coming more into line with Australia," Senior explained. "We've got things like the Forester tS – if that works, it could be exciting for us to bring things in sooner from Japan, or bring in things we don't have access to..."

In other words, there's a reasonable window of opportunity for Subaru to build up what could amount to a niche-volume subset of its Australian-spec product portfolio before parallel importers can make serious inroads into Subaru Australia's market share.

According to Senior, the Levorg would have been an obvious choice for parallel importers if the proposed legislation was already passed.

"It's an interesting one. Levorg was launched in Japan 12 months ago... That may have been an opportunity under this legislation for people to bring in cars. We know that; we've seen it in New Zealand, where New Zealand OEMs and dealers... have seen private imports come in three or six months before the actual new-car sales."

Levorg will hit NZ officially around the same time as Australia, late June or July. It's sold in European countries with just the 1.6-litre engine. Australia, Senior believes, will be the first country outside Japan to get the 2.0-litre.

The Levorg has been a strong seller in Japan, where it's seen to be a natural successor to the fourth-generation Liberty GT wagon, which was physically smaller than the models that followed.

"The best selling, the best loved Liberty of recent times has been the 21Z [model], which is the 2002 Liberty GT wagon. Sold lots of them. The Levorg was designed primarily to replace that in Japan, because that model around the world was the most successful Subaru's ever had.

"The next generation [Liberty wagon] that we said goodbye to about 12 to 18 months ago was too big for the Japanese market. So the Levorg was seen as the 21Z replacement, if you like.

"It's very similar to that generation Liberty, in terms of exterior size, but much more roomy and capable of taking bigger loads..."

Australian consumers are keen to get their hands on the Levorg also, Senior observed, noting that there was "no doubt that this is one of the most keenly sought Subaru vehicles ever."

Senior didn't say as much, but importing a Subaru from Japan must be currently at least as difficult for a private buyer as it is for the factory-appointed distributor. The production issue for Subaru has been so fraught that the Australian distributor has been negotiating with the factory to take small shipments of cars originally allocated to countries that have since suffered an economic downturn.

"It's been in terms, on occasion, of just getting three extra cars here or five extra cars..." Senior said.

"It's a bit like you're scrapping for every last car that you can get your hands on. As is the US, as is Canada. All those markets are performing exceptionally well.

"Even in Australia, our dealer stock level, I guess would probably be the lowest of any brand."

Senior says that the company's plant in Indiana has concluded building cars for Toyota, which will free up capacity for the North American market – and the rest of the world by extension. But for the moment that's as much as Subaru is willing to do to overcome the production shortfall.

"The investment in a new factory is big dollars, and you're pumping out 200... 300,000 [extra cars a year], so you've got to really be satisfied the business case is there to build a new factory.

"Everyone knows, you start a factory you basically have got to have it running at 100 per cent."

Imagine the aggravation at Subaru dealers around the nation if the factory cleared up its supply constraint issue just in time for parallel importers to take advantage of that...