Subaru pulls out of the WRC

bazz26

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/236532/

Looks like the car industry is in more trouble than we thought.

Mr.David

Subaru as a company are really stale, they contibute little to the world these days. The new impreza is a turd wagon.

h3000

Thread over in motorsports too.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055442300

NewApproach

I was shocked when I heard this on the news earlier.

Its not like I know an awful lot about rallying, but Subaru (in my mind at least) have always been closely associated with the sport.

In the last decade they have been iconic and to see them drop out really tells its own story

Cuddlesworth

Car Manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon for various motor-sports years ago because it sold cars. The problem that I see now is that winning the WRC doesn't mean more sales due to the availability of the internet and copious motor magazines and TV shows giving average people a opinion on cars they would not have held 10+ years ago.

pburns

Motorsport is in big trouble - BTCC, WRC and even F1.

Subaru haven't had success in rallying for a few years but they are synonomous with the sport. I just hope it doesn't effect their road cars.

The Impreza is definetely a disappointment and I think they shouldn't have re-developed the Forester into yet-another-big-SUV. Seems like the number crunchers have too big a say in product development. I'm hoping the new Legacy will be good though...

homer90

OMG ........ shocked by this ............

This is bad, bad news .....

bazz26

Personally I think this is very bad news for Subaru road cars, without the participation in the WRC then I cannot see their 4wd developement progressing much and hence it will not find it's way into their road cars.

In fact I can possibly see two things happening:

• 1. The likes of Subaru being enveloped by one of the bigger motor corporations so that it just becomes another branch on the corporate tree similar to what GM did with Saab.

or

• 2. Small manufacturers like Subaru just bite the dust and become no more.

Either way that indeed will be a sad day.

RichyX

bazz26 wrote: »

In fact I can possibly see two things happening:

• 1. The likes of Subaru being enveloped by one of the bigger motor corporations so that it just becomes another branch on the corporate tree similar to what GM did with Saab.

or

• 2. Small manufacturers like Subaru just bite the dust and become no more.

Either way that indeed will be a sad day.

Their parent company are already 16% owned by Toyota.

pburns

Before everybody goes writing their obituary, consider that a change in regs was also part of of their reasoning for pulling out:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsAr...llCars/236532/
And rallying’s newly rubber-stamped technical regulations, due to be introduced in 2010, specify that the top teams will use a car based on the current Super 2000 specification of machinery.
This would, in effect, have forced Subaru to develop a brand new car, since the Impreza only exists in World Rally Car and more standard Group N forms.

AFAIK Subaru invested of lot of effort for the 08 season developing an entirely new car. Now the goalposts have changed and many are not happy about the simpler, back-to-basics spec (Loeb in particualar was pretty scathing if I remember correctly).

unkel

bazz26 wrote: »

Small manufacturers like Subaru

:eek:

Subaru is owned by Fuji Heavy Industries, a large manufacturing conglomerate

Darsad

Dont think it will effect Subaru here too much they have been moving away from the WRC scene for some time their products are more main stream now and the changes in the CO2 tax system mean the sales of the WRX with its 2k road tax would be few and far between anyway unless Diesel takes off in the WRC cant see too many high spec replicas of any make in this market any more

maidhc

unkel wrote: »

:eek:

Subaru is owned by Fuji Heavy Industries, a large manufacturing conglomerate

Yeah, but small in terms of cars. Volvo cars were spun off from a large company, as was Saab, and probably many more I can't think of right now.

galwaytt

'sfunny, I was just thinking the other day about the stalemate, or lack of real competition in all manner of motorsports - and the last big shake up was also in times of recession - the '80s', and saw seachange of old-gaurd to new-comer in terms of manufacturers, their cars, and the events themselves.

Maybe this is just a 20yr itch ?

martydunf

maybe subura are pulling out from the WRC because there currently helping Toyota to build the new Celica thats long overdue to return to the WRC!