Subaru of America might be celebrating 50 years since its founding this year, but Subaru Japan is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2018. To commemorate the occasion, it too is making a special edition car and a promotional campaign to go with it.
Promotional items include a 60th anniversary book and notebooks embroidered with a cute little logo featuring the Subaru 360.
Oddly, though, the actual car is quite plain and doesn’t feature the 60th anniversary logo anywhere. Also, for some reason Subaru has chosen to use the lower-spec 1.6-liter version of the Impreza sedan and hatchback for its anniversary edition.
It comes with 16-inch wheels, side skirts, fog light bezels, and LED turn signal-embedded mirrors – all features normally found on the higher-grade 2.0-liter model. So basically, it looks nicer but has a smaller engine.
Inside, the a leather-wrapped steering wheel comes standard. Special features include silver gauges, silver stitching, aluminum pedals, “piano black” trim, and — someone call Robin Leach — a leather volume knob.
We think there’s a missed opportunity here. The US anniversary editions have a special badge on them. Japan could have done the same. Who wouldn’t want a little 360 badge on their new Impreza? The 60th anniversary edition cars will go on sale in Japan April 24.
Images courtesy of Subaru.
Maybe they didn’t want the dealers to jack up pricing on a special edition like they do here.
Betcha can’t find a Type R at even sticker price…
The smaller engine is because of road tax obligations, Once the engine displacement hits 2.0, you pay more tax. Subaru wants to sell lots of these, with higher equipment included, but in a country where you can’t realistically drive faster than 35MPH, including freeway driving, offering the 1.6 means they’ll be lots of them.
Today’s Subaru deserve less homogenous styling. They grew from being that “diffferent” kind of car to something that simply blends into the crowd style-wise. (WRX excluded perhaps)
I was pretty disappointed with the specs on what should have been a very special edition. But then I read about the leather volume knob.
Job done!
Hahahahaha!