What's the news?
Subaru looks set to join the ranks of the small crossover set, with the Viziv Adrenaline concept car. The concept will be shown at the Geneva motor show in just under two weeks' time, and judging from the rather dark-hued image shown thus far, it looks as if it could be Subaru's riposte to the likes of the Renault Captur and Nissan Juke.
It also looks like it could kick off a new styling language for Subaru, with a much smoother front-end than those essayed by its current line up, with headlights that appear to be much better integrated than those of, say, the current XV or Forester. There also appears to be a very sculpted bonnet and chunky wheelarches.
It's a bit hard to tell but the Viziv appears to be a three-door model, which would be an unusual move for Subaru. That's likely to be just a show-car thing though - with sales of three-door models falling all around the world, that's probably not going to make it through to production.
It's not the first time that Subaru has used the Viziv name for a concept, and it apparently stands for 'Vision for Innovation'. Previous Viziv concepts have eventually morphed into the current Impreza and Levorg, so there's more than a good chance that this will lead to a production model. It will be interesting to see how much Toyota technology will feature in the car, as Subaru is part-owned by the giant Japanese manufacturer.
Subaru will also show off a pair of hybrid models at Geneva, under the e-Boxer name, which seems to indicate that they will use hybridised versions of Subaru's 1.6-litre flat-four engine, as found in the Impreza. The 'e' bit also stands for Europe, as Subaru has previously sold a hybrid XV (under the Crosstrek name) in the US.
There's no indication as to whether these will be hybrids or plug-in hybrids, but the Forester SUV and XV crossover, and perhaps the Impreza itself, seem to be the most likely models to get the new engines first, not least because Subaru has stopped selling diesel versions of these cars in Europe.