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360 (1) SVX (1)

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Frequently Asked Questions about Classic Subaru

Subaru began as the car brand of Fuji Heavy Industries, which was established in Japan on July 15, 1953 with capital from five companies descended from Nakajima Aircraft. Subaru dates its origins to 1917, when Chikuhei Nakajima set up the Aircraft Research Laboratory. Kenji Kita, the first president of Fuji Heavy Industries, steered the company toward passenger cars and picked the Subaru name. Its first mass-produced model, the Subaru 360, followed in 1958.

Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, a star cluster in the constellation Taurus. The cluster is also known in Japan as Mutsuraboshi, or Six Stars, which is why the Subaru badge shows six stars. According to Subaru, the name symbolizes the unity of six companies, Fuji Heavy Industries and the five firms with roots in Nakajima Aircraft that it absorbed. Company president Kenji Kita chose it for the P-1 prototype, later known as the Subaru 1500.

Subaru is made by Subaru Corporation, a Japanese company that was called Fuji Heavy Industries until April 1, 2017. Toyota is a major shareholder. It bought 8.7 percent of the company from General Motors in 2005 and agreed in September 2019 to lift its holding to at least 20 percent of voting rights. General Motors had taken about 20 percent in a 1999 alliance that the two companies dissolved in 2005.

Subaru came to the United States in 1968, when Malcolm Bricklin and Harvey Lamm founded Subaru of America in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, to import the Subaru 360 minicar. In 1969 Consumer Reports rated it Not Acceptable, citing its lack of power and safety concerns. Subaru of America later moved its headquarters to New Jersey.

The first mass-produced Subaru was the 360, a rear-engined minicar launched in Japan in 1958. Its name came from its engine, an air-cooled two-stroke twin of 356 cc sized to fit Japan's 360 cc light-car class. Production lasted 12 years and reached 392,000. A prototype, the P-1, later known as the Subaru 1500, came before it.

Subaru introduced its horizontally opposed boxer engine in 1966 on the Subaru 1000 compact car, which was also the first front-wheel-drive Subaru. Four-wheel drive followed in 1972 with the Leone 4WD station wagon, which Subaru describes as Japan's first mass-produced all-wheel-drive passenger vehicle. That wagon reached American showrooms as a 1975 model under the DL and GL names. The Leone-based BRAT pickup joined it in the United States as a 1978 model.

The SVX was a two-door Subaru coupe styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign and sold in Japan as the Alcyone SVX. Shown as a concept at the 1989 Tokyo show, it went on sale in the United States in the summer of 1991 as a 1992 model. It used a 3.3-liter flat-six with an automatic transmission only and had window-within-a-window side glass. Worldwide sales totaled 24,379 cars.

Classic Subarus were built in Japan, where production began in 1958 and the main car plants are in Ota, Gunma Prefecture. Subaru did not build cars in the United States until September 11, 1989, when the Subaru-Isuzu Automotive plant in Lafayette, Indiana, started making the Legacy. The venture became Subaru of Indiana Automotive in January 2003, when Subaru took sole ownership. Models such as the 360 and the BRAT were imported from Japan.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Classic Subaru