Remember the Subaru SVX? You should! They were novel, strange cars with windows-inset-in-windows and a flat-six engine and Giugiaro styling and, somehow, no manual transmission option. They sort of marketed it as a luxury sports coupé, but the reality is that it was much more strange and wonderful. Based on some of these ads, I’m not really sure Subaru actually knew what the hell they were doing with the SVX, because there’s more than one ad that was touting getting into legal trouble as a plus.
In some ways, Subaru’s difficulty in marketing and selling the SVX is the sort of problem I wish they – and other carmakers – still had today: building cars that were so unexpected and cool that they manage to confuse themselves.
Of course, it would be better if they actually managed to still sell the cars. You know how many SVXs were sold, worldwide, in their run between 1991 and 1997? About 24,000, with about 14,000 of those sales in the US. That’s not a lot. Maybe that’s because of ads like this?
I mean, yeah, that’s true, the SVX could do 140 mph, and, sure, sports car advertising has played with the idea of speeding or getting tickets with a wink before, but rarely to the point of suggesting that you’ll soon end up without the legal ability to drive not just the car they’re advertising, but any car.
I feel like there must have been other versions of this kind of ad that got fecalcanned in the brainstorming process that had taglines that read “You can drive it so fast you’ll not see a kid crossing the street in time and kill them in sight of their parents and spend the rest of your life in a guilt-saturated hell of your own making.”
Other print ads were a bit less dire, but still confusing:
I get wanting to pitch a car as something that’s both fun and practical, a sportscar that can be civilized, too, but it’s hard not to think that maybe the two sides they picked here are, perhaps, too extreme? A 17 year old kid and a Florida retiree, like my friend Jeremy’s grandparents that play mah jongg and complain about soup temperatures?
So, based on these criteria, an SVX is what, a mashup of a poorly-running Chevy Cobalt with a primer fender and a well-preserved 1998 Oldsmobile Delta 88? Is that what drivers were looking for?
Their commercials were sort of misguided as well. Like this one, that feels like a newspaper print ad, just recast for television:
It’s even almost in black-and-white. The text moves faster and far more than the car does. Why go through the expense of making a television ad when you’re literally showing text and an unmoving car?
This commercial at least has plenty of driving action, but the voice over and scrolling text somehow manages to talk itself out of the appeal of a sports car by bringing up traffic and cops and gas prices:
Way to go, Subaru. Your own commercial disillusioned itself.
SVXs still feel exciting and futuristic when you see them on the street today, a rare happening, but still. It’s just a shame Subaru’s ad agency seemed to have no idea what the hell to do with it.
I’ve wanted one of these with a manual swap since forever. The flat6 sounds amazing when uncorked. The looks are, ahem, different and I don’t do drive-thru so the windows aren’t an issue. I don’t have a reason not to get one except that I already own a Miata. The Mi-yacht-a NC generation. I guess I like underdog cars?
Some SVX’s had an LSD that would bolt into a Datsun 510. Maybe the only redeeming part of the car.
I bought a 1992 model in 2001 for only $4k (or $8k? some multiple of 4, lol). I enjoyed it a lot, it felt premium, nice GT, but man, finding parts for it was impossible. It shared NOTHING with anything else. Sadly, I was rubbernecking after an accident on the opposite side of I-95 and got involved in a three car pileup. It was drivable, but given the age and the parts situation, it was totaled.
It’s exactly the kind of car (luxury GT) I want today, but they just don’t make anymore.
Back in the early 00’s I really tried to get one. Company I worked for tdoing raoadie stuff had lots of guests driving them, and I made a few offers but the only one selling had one fairly trashed so I opted out.
My default memory of them comeds from television, though, and the show COPS. Police were chasing after one who did top it out over 150mph but eventually out-drove their skill and launched it off a culvert.
There’s a great book called Where the Suckers Moon about how Wieden & Kennedy won this pitch and ten blew it with these ads. Basically the creatives didn’t like cars, which ironically is exactly what Jay Chiat told me about Chiat/Day’s first, disastrous Nissan “Engineers” ads from 1990…
Also, IIRC, that’s Brian Dennehy doing the voice over in that last spot. Another odd choice.
No one knew what to make of the SVX when it was new and the car collector crowd does not now. It was not enough of anything to make it noteworthy. Not a sports car, not a luxury coupe, and not a great GT. At the end of the day it was just a uniquely styled car.
Hard disagree.
It was a phenomenal all-weather GT, and there wasn’t really anything else like it. Sure, the 3000GT could be had with AWD if you sprang for the turbo model, but that was quite expensive and the AWD was more for launch performance than anything else.
The SVX did NOT have much launch performance, the gearing was outrageously high, and a stock v8 Cherokee could trounce it at stop light. But high-speed long distance driving, in ANY condition? That was something not much else could do. Think of all the other GT cars from the time period; having AWD put it in a class by itself.
I live in Wisco and at the time, we still had great winters. One of my jobs was a ski instructor and my SVX was my snow chariot. So many snow days I’d be driving 45min-1hour in winter conditions without any issue whatsoever. Need to hope a few states away and not worry about snowstorms?
This was THE car.
Articles like this are why I pay for Autopian membership! I still have the print copy of that ad laying around somewhere!
How much did they weigh? My hazy memory thinks it was a lot.
I served with a guy who bought one. Based on that sample size, the few that sold went to someone with an income who was gullible enough to let the salesman lead him to it. And the looks. They always have and still look cool.
3,500-3,600 lbs.
The engine being 6cyl based on ej really hurt. Lead brick and ripped all the manuals a new one.
I tried to edit my post but it didn’t stick.
Same weight and tire width as a 1991 535i, but with AWD, lower cgh, and more HP. Maybe dude was just slow?
Not a good handling car in the USA. Barely into the no positive camber era. So it had far less front grip than rear grip. Imagine a grand touring car designed by people paranoid you will hit the wall back first.
Wagons forever!