SUBARU DIEHARD Mr Fukue is a man passionate about the brand

By Justin Lee

MEET NORIO FUKUE, Fuji Heavy Industries manager for Asia sales and marketing section Asia, Pacific and Latin American sales and marketing department.

Mr Fukue is a man passionate about Subaru cars and has been at Subaru Tecnica International for 19 years before entering his new post.

He spoke at length about the brand and its future direction.

Quizzed on why Subaru has done away with the trademark frameless windows on the new Impreza and upcoming Forester, he said that this decision was determined by several factors.

“Subaru has always been a brand that emphasises on safety, performance and driving pleasure. We felt that the frameless window design for our cars has reached its engineering peak and cannot be developed further.

“In the interests of occupant safety and better crash protection especially for that of side impact collision, we at Subaru feel that framed windows will offer better passenger protection. This will also allow for more space in the door to create deeper door pockets and cupholders,” he said.

“The new Impreza is where Subaru starts using framed windows and this will continue on to the rest of the car range.”

A performance viewpoint is the explanation why the Impreza WRX STI is based on the hatch and not the sedan version.

“The Impreza WRX STI is the basis on which Subaru’s builds their World Rally Championship (WRC) cars. These cars must handle well and it is found that the hatchback body with shorter rear overhangs offers better stability and cornering. We have no plans to produce a sedan version of the STI at the moment,” he said.

“We do manufacture a sedan version of the Impreza WRX though.”

Mr Fukue also revealed that a production version of the Exiga concept car shown at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show in 2007 would debut in Japan in the middle of the year.

“Subaru will be introducing the Exiga for domestic sales in Japan during summer and the car will look slightly different from concept version. It will have a 2.0-litre engine and can seat seven people,” Mr Fukue tells us.

Local Subaru distributor Motor Image Enterprise is looking into the possibility of bringing in the Exiga and the Impreza WRX sedan. Details are scarce at the moment but these two cars would hopefully be shown to the public by the end of the year