Subaru at the Tokyo & LA motor shows

Graham King looks at what Subaru has brought to the Tokyo and LA motor shows

Subaru’s been busy this week with major launches in both Tokyo and LA.

First up is the Cross Sport Design, a compact SUV concept. I don’t know about you, but to me it looks a lot like a ruggedised BRZ shooting brake. Perhaps now that Toyota has the convertible FT-86, Subaru will get its own spin-off?

The Levorg goes on sale in Japan early next year. Power comes from brand-new 1.6- and 2.0-litre direct-injection, turbocharged flat-four engines, developing 168bhp and 296bhp respectively. I’m assuming it’s spun off from the same platform as the new WRX, which we’ll come back to: it seems to be a similar size and the front is more-or-less the same.

Meanwhile in LA...

The clue is in the name of the Legacy Concept: it’s the concept for the next Legacy. Behind the motor show glitz, the basic shape seems realistic enough. We’ll find out when the production version breaks cover at some currently unspecified time.

The big news from Subaru is of course the new WRX. Mechanically it’s more of the same, with a new 2.0-litre, direct-injection turbocharged Boxer ‘four’ putting out 268bhp. Symmetical All-Wheel Drive, Vehicle Dynamics Control and Active Torque Vectoring keep everything under control. But all that has been largely ignored, because every hack in the world has been banging on about the WRX’s styling.

I won’t deny that it’s a bit dull-looking and doesn’t live up to WRX concept from earlier this year. But that was a coupe and the production car is a saloon, of which there’ll be much more prosaic versions. So, while there are elements of the concept about the front, the rest of it was always going to be very different. And besides, with the exception of the late-Nineties two-door, it’s not like any other WRX was ever a looker.

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Suzuki at the Tokyo Motor Show

Graham King looks at what Suzuki has brought to the Tokyo Motor Show

Suzuki’s stand at the Tokyo Motor Show features some cars that are just a bit of fun and some that are much more relevant.

Suzuki is famous for its Tonka Toy-like SUV’s and they don’t come much more Tonka-ish that the X-LANDER. While my inner six year-old wants to push it round the garden, there’s some proper engineering going on underneath. It uses a 1.3-litre petrol with a electric motor built onto the AWD drivetrain. So though it’s based on the same chassis as the ancient Jimny, its fuel efficiency is bang up to date.

Suzuki doesn’t have a Nissan Juke rival yet, but the Crosshiker could be it. It has a new 1-litre, 3-cylinder engine and weighs just 810kg. It’s unlikely a production version would be that light, but it is based on Suzuki’s new lightweight G70 platform.

The current Grand Vitara is getting rather long in the tooth now, but it’ll be replaced by the production iV-4 sometime in 2015. We’ve seen it a few times already this year and at Tokyo it looks more-or-less production-ready. The new Grand Vitara will wade into battle with the Nissan Qashqai sporting Suzuki’s next-gen ALLGRIP four-wheel-drive system.

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Nissan at the Tokyo Motor Show

Graham King looks at what Nissan has brought to the Tokyo Motor Show

Nissan has unveiled four cars you might actually want at the Tokyo Motor Show. Unfortunately, you can only buy one of them.

The press release for the Nissan IDx is written almost entirely in design-speak. I won’t bore you with it, largely because I don’t really understand it. But in a nutshell, it’s been designed in collaboration with so-called ‘digital natives’ (otherwise known as anyone under 23) to appeal specifically to that age group. It could have been a disaster, but they’ve ended up producing something really desirable. It looks like a retro-futuristic Datsun 510 from and is about the same size (i.e. tiny). The road-going IDx Freeflow would be powered by a small petrol engine. There’s no indication of what’s under the racing-inspired IDx Nismo’s bonnet, but you’d hope for a whacking-great turbo at the very least. Unfortunately, you can’t buy one. But here’s hoping.

The triangular BladeGlider clearly takes its inspiration from 2012’s Nissan DeltaWing Le Mans racer and the related ZEOD RC that will compete at La Sarthe next year. Its three-seater (1+2) ‘swept wing’ shape is right at the cutting of road car aerodynamics and it’s powered by Nissan’s first in-wheel electric motors. The lithium-ion battery pack is much the same as that in the LEAF. The low centre of gravity and innovative aero mean the BladeGlider should handle brilliantly. Unfortunately, we’ll never find out as you can’t buy one. Probably ever. Unless you live in The Jetsons, perhaps.

The Nissan GT-R has always produced some big (and small) numbers. In the new GT-R Nismo, those numbers get even bigger (and smaller). The 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V6 engine now produces 591bhp, up from 542bhp, thanks to turbos pilfered from the GT-R GT3 racing car. Nissan hasn’t revealed any performance figures, but the standard car’s 0-62mph time stands at 2.7secs. Might an extra 49bhp shave a couple of tenths off? Under 2.5secs would be truly astonishing. Almost as astonishing as its lap time at the Nurburgring Norschleife: 7:08.679s. That’s the fastest time ever recorded for a volume production car. Fortunately you will be able to buy the GT-R Nismo when it goes on sale in 2014.

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Mitsubishi at the Tokyo Motor Show

Graham King looks at what Mitsubishi has brought to the Tokyo Motor Show

You can probably take the styling of Mitsubishi’s Tokyo concepts with a grain of salt. But their next-gen drivetrains could well be on the way.

There could be bits of the next Shogun in the Concept GC-PHEV’s styling. But whenever the new Shogun does arrive, I would be surprised if it isn’t underpinned by at least of the GC’s drivetrain. It uses a 3-litre, supercharged V6 MIVEC petrol engine powering the rear wheels via an eight-speed auto ‘box. Somewhere in the middle is a plug-in hybrid system, the motors presumably powering the front wheels.

The Concept XR-PHEV and Concept AR both use 1.1-litre, turbocharged MIVEC petrol engines, coupled to hybrid systems. A compact SUV, the XR (a first look at the next ASX, perhaps) uses a plug-in system, while the AR MPV is a mild hybrid, using a similar system to the Prius.

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Honda at the Tokyo Motor Show

Graham King takes a look at what Honda has brought to the Tokyo Motor Show

Honda has unveiled three cars at the Tokyo Motor Show today. One is much more exciting than the others, though the others are probably much important in reviving Honda’s recently flagging fortunes.

The Urban SUV is Honda’s new rival to the Nissan Juke. It’s powered by a 1.5-litre, direct-injection engine from a brand-new family of VTEC-equipped engines, that will be gradually rolled out in various forms across the Honda range. Naturally, there will be a hybrid option. The Urban SUV will be officially launched in Japan in December, badged Vezel. It comes to Europe in 2015 under a as-yet undecided name.

The next-generation Jazz will share the Vezel’s 1.5-litre when it comes to the UK in 2015. In normally aspirated form, it’ll produce 128bhp. Or 205bhp with a turbo. Are we getting a Jazz Type-R? The base engine will be a 120bhp, 1.0-litre, three-cylinder turbo.

But the exciting prospect is the S660 Concept, a pocket-sized, mid-engined sportscar. Honda has form with tiny roadsters, having produced the jewel-like S600 and S800 during the Sixties and Seventies and the Beat in the Nineties. A production version of the S660 will be launched in 2015 in Japan. Unfortunately, there’s no word if it will come to the UK, but here’s hoping.

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Daihatsu at the Tokyo Motor Show

Graham King takes a look at what Daihatsu has brought to the Tokyo Motor Show

Daihatsu withdrew from the UK a while back, but it always brings some fun, Micro Machines-sized cars to the Tokyo Motor Show, so I thought you might like a look.

This boxy micro-MPV is rather plain, though no doubt miraculously spacious. But it’s called Tanto. Which I quite like, for some reason.

The Kopen Concept might be called a concept, but it looks like the production-ready, next-gen version of Daihatsu’s miniature roadster. The new Kopen has been butched-up considerably over the old Copen (that’s not a typo, confusingly), looking a bit like a mini muscle car. Actually, that might be a stretch, but it looks great either way. The old car sold quite well in the UK, so the new old could put in an appearance here.

The FC-Deck is what would happen if two Renault Magnum lorries somehow managed to mate. Why Daihatsu thought the world needs a Kei-car-sized tractor unit that can’t pull anything, I have absolutely no idea. It is completely pointless and utterly banal. And yet I want it. Badly.

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