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Feann Torr18 Dec 2014
NEWS

Subaru Levorg decision imminent

March 2015 deadline for whether Subaru's 'WRX wagon' will be sold here

The Australian future of what would be a spiritual replacement for the both the discontinued Liberty wagon and WRX hatch will be known within three months, and it could be sold online like the BRZ sports coupe.

A decision on the Levorg's local fate will be made by March next year, said Subaru Australia Managing Director, Nick Senior, at this week's launch of the new Outback, which is the only wagon version of the new Liberty sedan also released this week. The latest WRX and STI, meantime, remain sedan-only models.

Ever since it was revealed at the 2013 Tokyo motor show, Subaru has touted the Levorg as a performance wagon that could replace both the Liberty GT and WRX hatch in Australia.

Powered by either a 125kW 1.6-litre or a circa-200kW 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engine borrowed from the WRX, the all-wheel drive Levorg outsells the WRX sedan two to one in Japan.

"There's no secret that we've been looking at Levorg," said the Subaru Australia boss. "It's getting to a stage where a decision will probably be made in quarter one next year, on whether Levorg is going to come here or not."

Sales of the new fourth-generation WRX launched here in March have reached near-record levels — a factor that is likely to have an impact on the decision.

"It's the business case to bring it here, the resource needed by FHI to develop it and homologate it for Australia and when you see a company that's grown from 500,000 to 900,000 units, has been upgrading production plants, launching an ambitious new model platform over the last couple of years, that's certainly a key component of [them] being able to say 'yes you can have it' and us saying 'yes we want it'".

The Levorg has only been in production since early this year and though the name may be an odd one -- derived from various parts of the three words LEgacy, reVOlution and touRinG – it will be retained if it gets the green light here.

Asked if there would be a name change for Australia, Senior said "No. We just feel nowadays with the world a global marketplace, why not capitalise on the name that's been out there?

"We don’t see a lot of sense in changing names."

Although the deal is far from done, the all-paw Levorg wagon could be sold in a similar manner to the BRZ and WRX STI – online.

"We did it with BRZ... we now have STI... we sell on average 2 STIs per month online, mainly to rural buyers. And it may well be there is a combination of both [online and showroom sales for Levorg].

"The combination is more looking at those people who don't have access to a showroom within X amount of driving time," said Senior.

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