The changing face of Impreza

The sales figures DO speak for themselves. Impreza sales in January 2006: 811 units, January 2007: 735, January 2008: 1213.

With a look that has been scorned as much as hailed and still courting criticism from some quarters for its interior, the new Impreza -- currently only available as a hatch -- has outsold the previous model by over 400 units in January, compared year-on-year with the old model for the last two years.

"And if we had more available we would have sold more", said Nick Senior, Subaru Australia's Managing Director.

Commenting on the sales response to the new car, Senior said: "We are attracting customers that have never considered the brand before".

"And that includes a lot of female buyers that haven't considered Subaru and in that mix are a lot of younger, professional women, who are very styling-conscious. Now, if they're accepting it, I'm comfortable with it."

The 'it' is the new car's styling, which has generated some pretty heated responses from those who feel that the small Subaru's styling has been emasculated or is a committee-driven effort that replicates styling cues from other manufacturers.

Much of the negative feedback probably comes from young -- and perhaps not so young -- men who either once owned a WRX or aspired to own one. The WRX was a chunky, aggressively styled car that arguably has been watered down in its looks with each subsequent new model.

But Senior doesn't see once-upon-a-time WRX aspirants as being the Impreza's bread and butter demographic any more.

"A few years ago, we were probably doing 600 Imprezas a month and up to half of those would have been WRXs. Nowadays, we did 1250 last month and 170 were WRXs, so that reliance on WRXs is long gone."

The reasons for the Impreza's migration to a broader buyer type are various.

"Some of the [WRX customers] have grown older and have moved [on]. We're looking at '96/97 -- 10 or 11 years ago -- and people that were buying WRXs then would have been 30 to 40.

"They're now 40 to 50; priority's changed, there may be kids, they need a bigger vehicle. They wanted more of that comfortable ride, which the WRX couldn't deliver -- nor the STi. Now we can deliver that and hopefully, some of those guys will come back to STi -- or Liberty GT."

Why has the WRX -- and the even more focused STi -- lost traction in sales? It's mostly about the competition.

"We've been there since '94 and in that time, the one consistent [entrant] in that category was the WRX. There's others that have come and gone, like the Lancer GSR, the Nissan 200SX -- and now we see Golf GTi and a few others, so there's no doubt that competition has improved, but... We've sold 25,000 WRXs. It's an iconic name, it's recognised anywhere and it's been great appeal to the kids... And attracting them to the Subaru brand."

Senior's words are telling. He makes no mention of the Lancer Ralliart and EVO X, but does mention the Golf GTi, which might lead some readers to draw the comparison with Volkswagen a step further -- the R32.

That's the point about the turbo Impreza models. They've moved upmarket. No one less than Subaru's leading WRC driver, Petter Solberg, asked the company to base the STi on the Impreza hatch, with its shorter rear overhang and consequently better agility. In the process of moving from sedan to hatch for the premium sports model, Subaru has moved up-market and is now tackling European competitors that might have been out of reach in the past.

When the Impreza sedan reaches Australia -- currently a problem of supply -- it too, will serve to shift the Subaru brand and the Impreza itself, further up-market.

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