Subaru Impreza

Subaru Impreza rendered in 3dsmax © Les Still

Subaru

Subaru , a Japanese car company, is the automotive division of Fuji Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (FHI).

Unlike some other motor companies, Subaru is not named after its founder.

"Subaru" is the Japanese word for the star cluster Pleiades that is depicted in the company logo. The Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters) has only six stars easily visible to the naked eye. Subaru's logo of six stars represents the five companies that came together after World War II to form one large company. This word translated from Japanese to English means: Unite.

Before WWII, the maker of SUBARU cars, Fuji Heavy industries (FHI), was known as Nakajima Aircraft, which made many fighters and bombers. Even the famous Mitsubishi Zero fighter had a Nakajima 14 cylinder engine. After the war, the company was forced to spread into 15 companies to cut the strength of the huge weapon industry. In the early 1950s, five of the original companies gathered into one again to restart as a transportation company. That was FHI and explains the five little stars and one big star.

So, the present SUBARU emblem represents the present company structure rather than the original star cluster image.

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While smaller than many of its competitors, Subaru has been a highly profitable company for many years. It is noted for the production of conventional-bodied cars with full-time AWD (in fact, in many markets its entire product range has this feature) and its use of boxer engines.

Subaru is currently an affiliate of Toyota Motor Corporation, with it owning 8.7% of FHI. They acquired that stake from General Motors, who bought 20% of FHI in 1999 to have an extended presence in international markets, and collaborate technologically with FHI. GM themselves had only purchased their 20% stake from Nissan in 1999, who had owned it since 1968, due to a restructuring of the Japanese auto market back then.

Subaru's best-known vehicles are high performance turbocharged versions of its Impreza, and Legacy (known as Liberty in Australia—it was renamed out of respect for the Legacy Australia Foundation, which aids veterans and their families during and after wars), which offer outstanding performance and handling at relatively affordable prices. Modified versions of the Impreza WRX and WRX STi have been competing successfully in car rallies and the World Rally Championship for many years (World Champion drivers include: Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Petter Solberg). The Subaru World Rally Championship cars are prepared and run by Prodrive, the highly successful British Motorsport team. Several endurance records were set in the early and mid-nineties by the Legacy.

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from Wikipedia