AUTO RED BOOK REVIEW: SUBARU HYBRID TOURER CONCEPT

On The Cover Review: Subaru Hybrid Tourer Concept

From a styling standpoint, the all-wheel-drive Subaru Hybrid Tourer is pure concept car.  Gigantic gull-wing doors and all white interiors don’t exactly lend themselves to the consumer market.  But as a show car, it got you over to the Subaru display at the 2010 North American International Auto Show.  It also showed that Subaru is jumping on the green bandwagon, with a fancy hybrid system.  It runs on a turbocharged, 2.0-liter Boxer gasoline engine.  Then there are two lithium-ion battery-powered electric motors; one for taking off from stoplights, and one to maintain cruising speed, that kick in to preserve dead dinosaurs.  There’s a good chance that we’ll see some version of this hybrid system on future road-faring Subarus, and we may even see a crossover of similar size and shape.  Chances are that when you see it, you won’t associate it with this concept vehicle, but sometimes cars like this are doing more than you initially recognize to shape the future of the vehicles we see every day.