ala Subaru Vortex, it failed to inspire once so why bother to try it again?

Yeah, these were sold in Oz... always used to see a few around but I
guess most have made it to the scrap heap by now? I always thought they
were fairly ugly but nice features and performance.

The SVX was released in Oz

and was a failure, just like its predecessor, the Vortex
(itself a brilliant little armchair to cruise in).

My brother has one...where are you and what colour was it? lol. They were
designed and built in the US for the US market primarily. If you drove one
you would see what I mean, suspension is floppy, furry velour dash &
woodgrain plastic. All that aside they are a very nice car that can be had
very cheaply considering the original 70k+ pricetag.

The engine is basically an EJ22 with two extra cyls and quad cam, as opposed
to the H6 that originaly came out in the Outback that was a rehash from the
beginning. At 169kW it had a bit of poke but needed it because the car is
VERY heavy. Transmission choice was auto or auto. The 5sp at the time
couldn't handle the torque. 4WD is via a variable centre diff as opposed to
the Liberty 4EATs that had a transfer clutch to the rear.

Driving them is not much fun though, need some tighter suspension and a lot
of weight forward of the front wheels (although somewhat compensated by the
forward facing driveshafts...a bit hard to explain) Understeer is prominent
and you can really tell it's a heavy car unless you have the right foot
burried very heavily out of the corners.

Performance in a straight line reasonable but  once again, crippled by the
weight. The sound is nice though, they got that bit right. If only they had
have built a lighter car around the same driveline.

James