The sunroof isn’t the only throwback inside: if you’re the sort of person (and I count myself among their number) who bemoans the ever-increasing number of touch-sensitive – or, far too often, insensitive – controls in modern machinery, this car is for you.
There is a touchscreen for the infotainment, and a pretty good one at that, increased from 8.0in in the old XV to 11.6in here, but elsewhere there are lots of traditional switches, some even making an old-school click-clack sound.
Indeed, a sense of no-nonsense practicality pervades. The interior is surprisingly roomy for what isn’t a huge car and the back seats in particular feel spacious (at 6ft 3in, I can sit behind the driver’s seat when it’s set up for me), although the rear seatbacks are very short and head room is rather at a premium.
Space is even more limited in the boot: the battery for Subaru’s e-Boxer hybrid system sits under the floor, so there’s no extra storage and it’s pretty shallow, leading to a meagre 315 litres with the seats up.
In the front, however, the seats are really comfortable, with an odd blend of sitting fairly high, due to the jacked-up suspension, but deeply set within the car.
Comfort levels are further augmented by the ride, which Subaru has worked hard on to make this car well tuned for road use without compromising the marque’s famed off-road ability.
There’s 10% more torsional rigidity than in the old XV, and that’s more than mere PR guff: open the rear doors and you will see secondary latches at the base of each to anchor them to the body.
So it’s stiffer and smoother-riding than before, as well as 150kg lighter, which should further aid its ability in the rough stuff, as well as giving a marginal improvement in fuel efficiency.
So far, it hasn’t exactly blown me away on that score, with mainly town driving resulting in an average MPG in the low-30s – to be fair, not far behind Subaru’s own WLTP figures.
That’s because the ‘hybrid’ bit is a touch misleading: this isn’t a plug-in or a proper self-charging hybrid with a large battery pack but very much a ‘mild’ hybrid.
