TOKYO -- Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. may build a
Subaru minivan for sale in global markets, including the United States.
The seven-seat minivan would offer Subaru features: all-wheel drive and a boxer
engine, says Ikuo Mori, chief general manager of Fuji Heavy's overseas sales and
marketing division. Fuji owns Subaru.
"Given our company size, we need
to make it a global car," Mori says. He declines to say when the minivan might
be ready for the United States.
Subaru sells four cars in the United
States: the Baja, Forester, Impreza and Legacy, and one light truck: the B9
Tribeca.
In Japan, the minivan would be a replacement for the Subaru
Traviq, a rebadged Opel Zafira that General Motors assembled in Thailand. GM
stopped building the minivan for Subaru in December, about three years after
Fuji Heavy sold it in Japan.
Last year, Traviq sales here plunged 36.1
percent from a year earlier to 1,847. Fuji Heavy said sales were poor because
the minivan lacked Subaru specialties, all-wheel drive and a boxer engine.
Meanwhile, Mori says the company plans to freshen the Legacy in 2007 and
redesign it in 2009. The Legacy is Subaru's best seller in the United States.
