Boxer engine, 4-wheel drive system, powerful racing cars… These are the elements that define Subaru’s brand throughout its nearly century-long history of development.
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The Pleiades star
Subaru is a car manufacturer and brand owned by Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI) of Japan.
The brand is internationally renowned for the use of boxer engines in most of its vehicles with engine capacity over 1500cc. Subaru’s all-wheel drive system, introduced in 1972, has become a standard feature for midsize and compact cars showcased in most international auto shows since 1996. They also offer numerous turbocharged versions of their compact cars, such as the Impreza WRX.
Subaru gets its name from the Pleiades star cluster
Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru’s parent company, currently has a partnership with Toyota Motor Corporation, which holds a 16.5% stake in FHI.
Subaru takes its name from the Pleiades star cluster, which is featured in the Subaru logo and symbolizes the six member companies of FHI.
The name Subaru
FHI originated as The Aircraft Research Laboratory in 1917, under the leadership of Chikuhei Nakajima. In 1932, it was reorganized as Nakajima Aircraft Company and became the primary aircraft manufacturer for Japan during World War II.
After the war, Nakajima Aircraft was reorganized as Fuji Sangyo Co., Ltd. In 1946, the company produced the lightweight Fuji Rabbit motor scooter using aircraft parts from the war. In 1950, Fuji Sangyo was divided into 12 smaller companies under Japanese government legislation aiming to break up the zaibatsu.
Between 1953 and 1955, four of these companies, including the lightweight scooter manufacturer Fuji Jidosha, the truck body maker Utsunomiya Sharyo, the engine maker Omiya Fuji Kogyo, and the chassis maker Tokyo Fuji Dangyo, along with a newly formed corporation Fuji Kogyo, decided to merge and create the well-known heavy industrial conglomerate that Fuji has become today.
Subaru 1500
Kenji Kita, during his tenure as CEO of Fuji Heavy Industries, envisioned the company’s involvement in car manufacturing and began planning the development of a car codenamed P-1. Kita sought suggestions from the company on naming the P-1, but none of the proposals were sufficiently appealing.
Ultimately, he decided to give the car a Japanese name he had used as a pen name for his childhood writings: Subaru. The first Subaru model was the Subaru 1500, with only 20 units manufactured. From 1954 to 2008, the company designed and manufactured numerous cars, including the 1500 (1954), the 360 (1958) with its super-small air-cooled engine, the Sambar (1961), the 1000 (which featured the “Boxer” engine development codename in 1965), the R-2 (1969), the Rex and Leone (1971), the BRAT (1978), the Alcyone (1985), the Legacy (1989), the Impreza (1993), the Forester (1997), the Tribeca (2005), and the Exiga (2008).
Racing cars
Subaru Rally Team Japan, led by Noriyuki Koseki (the founder of Subaru Tecnica International STI), campaigned with used Subaru Leone coupés, sedan DL, RX (SRX), and RX Turbo in the World Rally Championship from 1980 to 1989. Remarkable drivers included Ari Vatanen, Per Eklund, Shekhar Mehta, Mike Kirkland, Possum Bourne, and Harald Demut. Mike Kirkland competed in all six rounds and won the A Group of the 1986 Safari Rally. That year, Subaru was one of the few manufacturers combining 4WD and turbo. Subaru switched to racing with the Legacy RS from 1990 to 1992 and entered the first season of the World Rally Championship with a similar model in 1993.
Subaru left its mark on the World Rally Championship
The modified versions of the Impreza WRX and WRX STI were quite successful in racing; exceptional drivers Colin McRae (1995), Richard Burns (2001), and Petter Solberg (2003) won the overall World Rally Championship title with the Subaru World Rally Team, and Subaru won the manufacturer’s title three consecutive years from 1995 to 1997.
On December 16, 2008, Subaru announced its withdrawal from the World Rally Championships due to issues related to the ongoing global economic crisis, as well as the potential difficulties posed by the 2009 season and rule changes for the 2010 season.
Beginning in 2006, Subaru of America (SOA), the official distributor of Subaru vehicles in the United States, established the Subaru Road Racing Team (SRRT), racing a Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT Spec-B in the Grand-Am Street Tuner class. In 2010, SRRT competed with a Subaru Impreza WRX STI in the Grand Sport class.
Diesel engines
At the 2007 International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Subaru unveiled a horizontally-opposed, water-cooled, common-rail direct-injection turbodiesel engine with a variable geometry turbocharger called the Subaru EE engine, the first engine of its kind used in a passenger car.
Current Subaru Forester
In the 1950s, Volkswagen experimented with a similar idea, producing two diesel boxer engine prototypes that were air-cooled and lacked turbocharging, one being the Type 1 and the other being the Type 2.
The Subaru diesel engine has a power rating of 110 kW and 350 Nm with a displacement of 2.0 liters. In March 2008, Subaru launched the Legacy sedan and wagon, along with the Outback wagon, equipped with a 2.0-liter turbodiesel in the EU, featuring a 5-speed manual transmission.
In September 2008, Subaru announced the introduction of diesel versions of the Forester and Impreza at the Paris Motor Show 2008, with Forester sales starting in October 2008 and Impreza diesel sales starting in January 2009. The Forester and Impreza have a 6-speed manual transmission, while the Legacy and Outback have a 5-speed manual transmission.
Thu Ha (TTTD)
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