HUMBLE VEHICLE SHINES OFF ROAD
We’re indebted to humble little Subaru. See, these are some of the most faithful cars money can buy. They’ll get you to your destination in one piece, regardless of the weather or what’s under the wheels. Gravel? Yup. Mud? You know it. Snow? Bring it. You’ll get there because you’re driving the Rick Astley of cars — never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.
Subaru was always one to march to the beat of its own drummer, but these days are not what they used to be. Sales in North America have exploded to impressive figures, but with that growth came a small loss of identity when the cars started to become a little more mainstream, all in the name of chasing more consumers. Subaru fans went nuts when the Impreza first got framed windows.
That’s not to say everything Subaru makes today is an amorphous blob of transportation. You just have to look closely; the Outback is still a jacked up Legacy wagon, the WRX STI still has a picnic bench for a wing and the Crosstrek is still an Impreza on stilts with a scruffy beard.
For 2016, the Crosstrek (note the name; it’s no longer the XV Crosstrek) gets a number of minor changes, but enough to warrant a second glance. Stare at the front of the vehicle long enough and you’ll pick out the details. There’s a restyled front bumper, a slimmer grill and new wheels. Well, that’s a relative term; you could call them wheels, but they’re more like studded hiking boots that help the Crosstrek go anywhere. And go anywhere it does. My drive of the Crosstrek starts in downtown Toronto, where the roads are locked with weekday traffic until we get to a ho-hum highway run. It’s here the Crosstrek’s weaknesses come to light; the 148-horsepower 2.0-litre four-cylinder boxer engine doesn’t make for a lively drive, especially hooked up to a continuously variable transmission.
Thankfully, Subaru offers a five-speed manual across the board, but that takes care of only part of the problem. Shoehorning Subaru’s 2.5-L engine or the 2.0-L pancake-four from the WRX or Forester XT into the Crosstrek would do the trick.
Road manners are another sticking point.
The Crosstrek isn’t particularly quiet, with significant wind noise, a buzzy engine and a transmission whine you just can’t miss under full throttle. Luckily, blind spots are virtually non-existent and Subaru’s EyeSight suite of safety goodies — with adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning and automatic braking — makes highway runs and traffic more tolerable.
But when asphalt ends and gravel roads begin, the Crosstrek comes alive.
The rear end takes some work to break loose and stability control is quick to intervene, but the Crosstrek is much less fazed by dirty work than the competition. It loves puddles as much as Colin McRae’s rally-bred Impreza 555 and, as a matter of fact, the Crosstrek looks ridiculously proper caked in chunks of mud.
Heck, if you’re crazy enough, you could even take it to the Arctic Circle.
It’s no Jeep Wrangler, Range Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser, but the Crosstrek will get you just about anywhere without fail.
Within reason, of course.