Will Subaru Offer a Compact Van?

New Grille May Indicate Future Subaru Styling Trend

As of late, its difficult to tell what is going on at Subaru. From an American perspective, things appear to be moving in a positive direction with the recent introduction of turbochargers for its recently updated Forester, funky Baja, and insanely fun WRX STi, while a much more mainstream Legacy looks ready to make its mark on the midsize segment of the market in the not too distant future.

But on the eastern side of the world the story is slightly different. Struggling in its home market of Japan, Subaru has neither diesel engines nor city-friendly people carriers available. It is this latter category that the Fuji Heavy Industries division intends to improve upon, with something like the mid-sized family hauler shown.

A Subaru minivan? Well, actually the quirky Japanese automaker already has one in place thanks to cooperation from partner General Motors. Dubbed the Traviq, its a rebadged euro-market Opel Zafira, but without Subarus horizontally-opposed engine configuration or all-wheel drive - staples of the brand.

Its styling looks to be partially inspired by the Fuore-designed B11-S show car (see Subaru Concepts), at least up front where the inclusion of a distinct teardrop grille sets it apart from other manufacturers. Being that this is Subarus second concept to sport the new grille, it may be indicative of future production cars.

With great hopes on the a new model to fulfill the needs in this popular category, as 50 percent of cars sold in Japan are high-topped people carriers, Subaru will be testing public response to this concept in Japan. The project has yet to be confirmed.

In the end, even if it gets built, the compact van will most likely not make it to the U.S. The only benefit on this side of the pacific might be vicarious, with Subarus prospective boosted profits improving the amount and quality of products available to Americans.