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Marton Pettendy3 Jul 2015
NEWS

Subaru confirms Levorg for Oz

Long-awaited Levorg sports wagon not arriving until mid-2016

UPDATE: Subaru Australia has today confirmed its "newest excitement machine", the Levorg sports tourer, will arrive in Australian car dealerships from mid-2016.

Local specification on the hard-charging wagon won't be released until next year, but if the UK version is any guide, it's 2.0-litre turbo-petrol boxer engine will pump out an impressive 221kW and 400Nm. With native AWD, it'll rip from 0-100km/h in around 6.2 seconds.

Subaru Australia's managing director, Nick Senior, commented: "It will appeal to those fourth generation Liberty GT buyers who have been starved of a logical successor but we believe it will also attract a much wider audience because of its performance, its versatility, its refinement and its high level of standard equipment.

"It will join one of the strongest sporting line-ups in the industry – BRZ, WRX, WRX STI and XT – vehicles that last month accounted for nearly 500 sales."

Senior also revealed that fans can expect few surprises along the way.

"And we have more excitement later this year with three very special limited editions arriving and another in first half of 2016 that will be the ideal complement to Levorg."

Subaru will tomorrow morning confirm the Australian release of its spiritual successor for both the discontinued Liberty GT wagon and WRX hatch.

Full local specifications and an on-sale date will not be confirmed until then, however, the new Levorg will not be available Down Under this year.

Subaru announced the Levorg's release in the UK – the first market to receive it outside Japan – in September earlier this week, leading to speculation of its imminent release in Australia, where an import decision was to have been made by March.

However, Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior today told motoring.com.au the Levorg will not be launched here this year and that price and spec details of the WRX-based wagon are yet to be confirmed.

"It's definitely not coming in 2015," said Senior. "We'll issue a statement tomorrow morning that will clarify what is coming and when."

Senior would not confirm whether the Levorg, for which he has not hidden his enthusiasm since it appeared in Japan in 2013, will be released in Australia next year, and indicated that ongoing price negotiations are the reason an announcement had not yet been made.

"It's one of those [issues] that we are dealing with the factory over a sensitive matter and it's taken some time," he said. "It's much too early to talk pricing."

In the UK, the Levorg 'sport tourer' will be available with a turbocharged 125kW 1.6-litre four-cylinder boxer engine matched to all-wheel drive and a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) as standard.

However, Subaru UK describes the Levorg GT -- which packs a 221kW/400Nm 2.0-litre turbo-boxer engine with similar outputs to the WRX STI and can hit 100km/h in 6.2 seconds -- as a spiritual successor to the Liberty GT wagon.

Base models offer a two-mode version of Subaru's Lineartronic SI-Drive CVT auto, while the GT features a Sport version with eight-speed manual shift mode.

Fuel consumption is rated at 5.8L/100km for the idle/stop-equipped 1.6-litre and 7.6L/100km for the 2.0-litre.

The Levorg, which in top-spec form is likely to come with the full suite of Subaru's EyeSight safety technologies, has been on sale since January 2014 in Japan.

UK pricing is yet to be announced, but in its domestic market the Levorg is priced from 2,775,600 yen ($A29,530) for the 1.6GT, with the 2.0GT priced from 3,348,000 yen ($A35,600) – exactly the same as the WRX sedan, which starts at $38,990 here.

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