Osamu Namba, the Subaru design chief, made a surprise appearance at the New York International Auto Show last week for the unveiling of the new WRX concept. In an interview at the company’s stand, he said the car presented the company’s new design language, parts of which were seen in the Viziv concept shown at the Geneva auto show in March. As the most extreme of Subaru designs, the WRX offers the company a chance to render the new vocabulary in striking form.
Mr. Namba said the name of the new look is Dynamic Solidity. Speaking through a translator, he said the two-part phrase echoed formulations like Hyundai’s “fluidic sculpture” or Lexus’s “L finesse.”
By tradition, Subarus are known for solid dependability. Touting all-wheel drive and boxer engines, many past models have worn homeliness proudly, giving cargo capacity, road clearance and ruggedness priority over aesthetics. Dynamic Solidity takes Subaru’s styling in a new direction.
“It has to be dynamic,” Mr. Namba said of the new look. “It says performance, but Subaru performance tradition.”
Subaru’s performance pedigree turns on the flat four boxer engines and full-time all-wheel drive offered on the company’s vehicles. Subaru’s new lines visually widen the new WRX concept’s face, bringing a lower look to the vehicles than seen on previous models. The wheel arches are large, to emphasize all-wheel drive.
“We have kept the hexagonal grille, of course,” Mr. Namba said. He pointed out the square, LED-bracketed headlights flanking the grille, which is filled with a three-dimensional mesh pattern. Subaru’s “star cluster” logo floats in the grille’s center.
“These shapes go through to the rear,” he said, comparing the front bracket form lights to similar bracket shapes echoed on the rear lights. The low, wide diffuser in back also mimics the grille and lower front side vents.
A big air intake and hood bulge add cartoonish features to the powerful looking WRX, more or less in keeping with typical concept car exaggeration. Even the company’s characteristic bright blue paint has been dialed up with a new metallic hue called WR Blue Pearl III. The sparkly blue is offset with bright fluorescent yellow exhaust tips and brake calipers. There is no danger of the new look Subaru being confused with a Italian roadster.
“The new look is to bring a family consistency,” Mr. Namba said. “This will be on the new models, it will cascade through the line.”
Looking at Subaru’s current model lineup side by side – the chunky, aggressive Impreza compared with the svelte, handsome BRZ coupe, for example – it’s clear that consistency has been lacking in Subaru’s design approach.
In avoiding changes to Subaru’s hexagonal grille, Mr. Namba may be playing it safe. An awkward upright oval grille – last seen on the Tribeca compact S.U.V. – scuttled the last Subaru design revolution, much to the chagrin of the former Subaru design chief Andreas Zapatinas. Ostensibly inspired by jet aircraft, the almost Edsel-eque grille pattern now appears to have been the work of Erwin Himmel, a designer, who began work on the project before Mr. Zapatinas arrived in 2002. Whoever is to blame, the grille was widely derided.
Mr. Zapatinas’s tenure at Subaru lasted until 2006, and the company picked up Mr. Namba from his private firm in 2008. As the new faces of Subaru’s reborn design language, the world is certain to see and hear more of Mr. Namba and the WRX concept.
Source: New York Times
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