Impreza sedan rises

SUBARU Australia managing director Nick Senior has revealed that losing the upcoming Impreza sedan was once thought to be no great loss, but not anymore.

“Initially I was quite comfortable that we were only going to get the hatch, and then there was a little bit more research, and there were people saying that, ‘I like Impreza, I like Subaru, but I want my small car to be a sedan’.

“So that’s where we have explored the possibility of introducing the sedan into Australia,” he told GoAuto last week. “I think there is a segment of that market out there waiting for the sedan for whatever reason they don’t like the hatch, or particularly for fleet and government business, people like having a boot for security or safety.” Buoying Mr Senior’s enthusiasm is the strong demand for the recently released Impreza hatch, which has outstripped sales predictions by running at 1200 units per month so far this year, against estimates of 1000 and the previous models’ 800 monthly average. Nevertheless, supply constraints mean that Subaru will not be able to chase the sort of volumes of around 3000 monthly units posted by the Mazda3. “No, we can’t get enough. We are restricted at the moment, in terms of what we can get, particularly in terms of Impreza automatic. We don’t really want to chase the high-volume end of that small-car market. It costs a lot of money.” The normally-aspirated Impreza sedan is due here in August, with the WRX version coming in October.