SUBARU pitched its Levorg as a spiritual successor to the much-loved Liberty GT, and as the sole low-riding wagon in the current line-up, piqued a bit of early interest but sales soon dropped off.

Combining a practical wagon body with the potent WRX engine, plus the performance icon’s front-end styling and all-wheel-drive system was a tasty proposition on paper, but high cost and low equipment plus a less-than-ideal ride and handling setup led to criticism that probably put off the punters.

That, and the desertion of wagons in favour of SUVs. Worse, next to the Levorg in Subaru showrooms was the Forester XT that has the WRX engine, albeit punching out slightly less power, priced lower than an equivalent Levorg.

Finally Subaru has lowered the Levorg’s entry price by $7250 with the Australian debut of a new 1.6-litre turbo-petrol boxer engine and other tweaks including suspension revisions on up-spec variants.

Early indications are that the sales slump hasn’t reversed, but the updated Levorg has at least shone a light into a very bright future for Subaru and we look forward to its impressive new powerplant being deployed across more models in the range.