Not long ago, Subaru discovered that a huge portion of the general car-buying public thought that they were from the country responsible for Kangaroos, Shrimps on the Barbie, and Jacob Black. Australia is just the craziest – and thanks to their Outback crossover and old commercials starring Crocodile Dundee that ran during Home Improvement, many Canadians wondered if they should invest in an Australian car, like a Subaru. Many of these folks, unsure of Australian cars, didn’t.

This prompted things like the Sumo wrestler advertising campaign, designed to reinforce the fact that Subaru is, in fact, Japanese, not Australian.

Subaru also discovered that many folks thought of them as the ‘AWD’ brand. That’s not a bad thing per se, though shoppers not dead-set on ownership of an AWD car tended to shy away and buy a Toyota instead.

And so, today, Subaru is pushing a product line repositioned for an all-out assault on the mainstream market. First with the last-generation Legacy and now with the Impreza, Subaru has applied updates, re-strategized their pricing, improved fuel efficiency and worked to push attributes of their rides that extend beyond the presence of standard AWD.

There are a few reasons you buy a Subaru Impreza. One of them, and probably still the biggest, is that it’s about the only AWD car in its price range. And it’s not just All Wheel Drive, its Subaru Symmetrical AWD. There’s a difference.

Other reasons include the warm and fuzzy things loved by sensible and value-minded shoppers. These are built into the Impreza’s reputation and proven in its trophy rack. Things like residual value, reliability, owner satisfaction, a no-nonsense ownership experience and, maybe especially, safety, are all top notch here.

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