Subaru Levorg 1.6 DIT, motoring review: It's not the new Legacy – so what is it?

Subaru have chosen really a very small niche with the Levorg, which at times seems as odd as its name

The ride is firm for a family estate, bordering on the unforgiving over larger bumps

You could argue that trying to dominate a niche in the market can be more successful than spreading yourself wider in a bigger market. But Subaru have chosen really a very small niche with the Levorg, which at times seems as odd as its name.

The follow up to the Legacy has four-wheel drive and is an estate, and is also underpinned by a platform and suspension largely lifted from the WRX STi sports saloon. So far so Subaru. So what we have here it seems is an estate car with some serious GT sporting pretensions.

Where the surprises start is under the bonnet. There we find a 1.6-litre turbocharged flat-four petrol engine, where we might have expected to find a flat six of bigger capacity. The only transmission is a Lineartronic CVT auto box taking power to the four wheels. No alternatives, no substitutes.

The engine is smooth and fairly sophisticated, but not rip-snorting

The results are faintly predictable. The ride is firm for a family estate, bordering on the unforgiving over larger bumps. There’s no way this is going to get out of shape in the handling department, so you always have something in reserve, but you’d need to appreciate fine handling over comfort to find it the best compromise in an estate car.

The other issue is that this handling is never pushed that far because the engine is not exactly rip-snorting. The engine is smooth and fairly sophisticated but the 168bhp on offer is never going to match up to the handling possibilities. This is very much not helped by the elastic CVT which whines and stretches power delivery to a rather uninteresting extent. One piece of collateral damage is fuel consumption, which is unlikely to get above 35mpg out here in the real world.

The dashboard looks crowded and complicated

Inside it’s a similarly mixed message. The seats with black leather are big and comfortable and the materials surrounding them are quite pleasant to the touch. But there are some faintly horrid plastics lurking in the cabin, and the dashboard looks crowded and complicated because it is.

The boot of course is good, and at 522 litres it’s big for the class, helped by having rear seats which can fold properly flat.

So if you need a four-wheel drive estate that handles well if firmly, and you particularly want an auto box combined with a fairly uninspiring powerplant, and you don’t mind the name, then the Levorg is for you. You’re paying quite a lot for that niche, but then probably not many others are going to be joining you.

Subaru Levorg 1.6 DIT GT

Engine size: 1.6-litre petrol

Price from: £27,495

Power: 168bhp

Torque: 184lb ft

0-62mph: 8.9 seconds

Top speed: 130mph

Fuel economy: 39.8mpg

CO2: 164g/km