The Subaru SVX is one quirky, flawed, awesome car. The SVX was Subaru’s first attempt at a world-class GT that would move them up-market. Away from the tin can econoboxes they were known for, and into a more rarified level where cars were interesting, powerful and worth talking about.

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It was everything Subaru hoped it would be. Except for being a commercial success, that is. At $10,000 above the price of the Subaru XT which was already nearly twice the price of any other Subarus, it was a bit of a hard sell. So, despite a beautiful design and by far the best driving dynamics of any Subaru so far, it took five years to sell as many cars as Subaru expected to move every year. A mere 24,379 found buyers worldwide, with the bulk of them, 14,257, coming to the U.S. Ready to dig in and find out what made this car so very cool, if not a big seller? Let’s do it.

10 The Name

These days, alphabet soup badges adorn the rear of many a car. But 27 years ago, there were namey names like Loyale, Escort, and Le Sabre, or numbery names such as 911, 405, and 3000GT. And then there was the Specialty Vehicle eXperimental or SVX for short. The name wasn’t the wildest thing about the car, but it was a good hint it was anything but mainstream.

Another clue was that there was very little badging anywhere on the car. There was a hood ornament – the traditional Pleiades constellation – but the sides and rear of early cars were devoid of chromed plastic lettering. The only place the marque or name appeared on the car was a very subtle, translucent wordmark that blended into the center of the tail light/reflector panel.

9 The Hidden Stereo

In a car that was virtually littered with special details, the stereo stood out. Not because it offered both a CD-player and cassette deck in a time when one was ubiquitous and the other unheard of. Or, because it was a component stereo when most cars made do with a single DIN. No, the SVX stereo had a secret…

To the uninitiated (and remember that since they sold a mere 24,379 over five years almost the entire world was uninitiated), it seemed there wasn’t one – just an uninterrupted sweep of faux-wood running from the center console to dash. But in reality, a gentle press on the right spot would activate a soft-touch door that revealed a fairly decent-sounding Panasonic stereo.

8 The Directional Wheels

The level of detail achieved by the SVX’s design carried through to every aspect, including the wheels. The standard practice of one wheel design that looked the same no matter which side of the car they were mounted on was too pedestrian for the SVX. It had directional wheels that were mirror images of each other. One set for the right side, another, reverse set, for the left.

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The designer’s attention to detail was rarely matched by the owners, however. Most SVXs seen in the wild are plagued by wheels that either rotated the wrong direction (gasp!) or have one pointing forward and one pointing backward on each side (eek!).

7 The Glass-Covered A-Pillars

One of the unusual exterior treatments was the aircraft-inspired cockpit design that wrapped glass around as much of the greenhouse as possible. While most cars have visible A-pillars, the SVX hid them behind windshield and door glass for a more uniform appearance.

It was a subtle touch, for sure, but all these nuances added up to a car with a presence like no other. If only manufacturing techniques had progressed to the point that the roof could have been glass, as well. That’s the only element that could have made the SVX stand out even more than it already does.

6 The Boxer 6

Whether you call it a boxer, pancake or flat-6, the engine in the SVX is a horizontally-opposed six-cylinder that shares its architecture with a much better-known car – the famed Porsche 911. One major difference is that the Subaru is liquid-cooled, instead of air-cooled like the one from Zuffenhausen. The other being the engine resides up front, instead of hanging out at the back.

New, the 3.3-liter engine delivered 230 horsepower and 228 ft-lbs of torque, pushing (and pulling) the SVX from 0-60 in 7.3 seconds. It wasn’t exceptionally fast, but it was extremely consistent and easy to launch, given the AWD drivetrain. And, unlike the agricultural-sounding flat-4 found in other Subarus of the day, it sounds great winding through the gears.

5 The Climate Control

Ok, the SVX wasn’t blazing a trail with automatic climate control, but Subaru wasn’t following the pack with their ergonomics and interior design, either. Nestled up and to the left of the hidden stereo in the center stack was a translucent plastic circle with a tiny red up arrow at twelve o’clock, and a blue downward arrow at six.

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And glowing in the middle was the temperature. Click the up arrow to raise the temp, the down arrow to lower it, or the button just to the right to view the outside temperature. Efficient, elegant, and totally unlike the knobs and levers that controlled HVAC systems in every other car of its day.

4 The Alcantara Trim

Passengers in the SVX were treated to a wraparound cockpit that was part faux-wood plastic, part vinyl, and part leather. But it also included an elegant suede-like beltline wrapping from door to door via the armrest, glove compartment and dash.

By adding this swath of Alcantara, Subaru gave the SVX interior an upscale look and feel without sacrificing cleanability or durability. Just what was needed in a car that was significantly more expensive than any Subaru that came before it. The SVX gave passengers something to look at that was in keeping with the exterior, if nowhere near as outrageous.

3 The Book

Your car may be faster (very likely these days), rarer (doubt it), or cooler (doubt it again), but there’s no way it also stars in a book. A non-fiction book, no less. The SVX plays an important role in one of the best advertising portraits ever written, Where the Suckers Moon by Randall Rothenberg.

It’s the compelling behind-the-scenes story of Subaru of America’s search for a new ad agency in the early 1990s and their quest to find market success beyond the snowy confines of Vermont and Maine. The car they needed was an even nicer Legacy. The car they got was something nobody could have predicted and the inexperienced winning agency had no idea how to advertise.

2 The Designer

The designer slots in at #2, finally putting everything above in context. It was, of course, Giorgetto Giugiaro. His designs were hugely influential on supercars, econoboxes, and even minivans. So when Subaru wanted to design their first upscale car – a car that would forever change how people thought of Subaru – of course, they had to have him.

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Giugiaro created a low beltline, high bustle wedge shape that was curvaceous, slippery (a mere .29 coefficient of drag), striking, and muscular. The SVX managed to incorporate several unusual design cues that made it a frequent topic of conversation. One owner even reported being chased down the highway by an eager-for-a-closer-look driver of an 18-wheeler.

1 The Window-in-a-Window

Ah, yes. The most striking feature of all. While the SVX was light and airy inside due to all the glass, it wasn’t exactly easy to do the things one normally lowered the windows to do. Toll booths (remember those?), parking garage ticket dispensers, and drive-thrus required some planning and contortions to navigate, as only the small, lower section of the window opened.

Even so, the unusual design also meant you could drive at highway speeds with the windows down and not be buffeted by wind, or get wet if it was raining. And that you would meet enthusiastic strangers every time you stopped for gas, left the car in a parking lot, or inched along in bumper-to-bumper traffic. All-in-all, the windows were a win. As was the entire car.

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