funny letter in the July Automobile magazine
 

Quoted in full:

"The quandary over classifying Mazda's RX-8 reminds me of the early '90s and the questions about the Subaru SVX. Like the SVX, the RX-8 is boldly quirky, but it remains to be seen whether the RX-8 has as much soul as the SVX. Let's hope Americans buy enough RX-8s to save the car from the untimely termination that the SVX received."

Hmm. I will agree about his kind words for our cars. :)

Aw, that's so sweet. :)

Nice.

we got soul, brutha!

Not all have such kind words for the SVX. In the latest issue of Sport Compact Car, they discuss the B11S, and they say something like now would be a good time to bring the B11S to market because people have all but forgotten the fiasco of the SVX. And I used to like that magazine! ;-)

yeah, but you can't say they're wrong. the marketing of the SVX was HORRIBLE. nobody knew they existed. add failing trannys, failing wheel bearings, poor brakes, controversial styling and...voila!......fiasco. :(

I don't think the brakes are that bad, and neither do any magazine reviews I've read about it. In fact, it stopped a lot better than some other similar cars of that era.

- Rob

Yeah, but he's right about the wheel bearings and the trannys.

I've had at least two new cars with tranny's that went out before 70K. My SVX has twice that, and the tranny's fine.

Well, maybe about the wheel bearings. I think I finally have one going. ;)

Funny, I was just thinking today....wondering what a 2003 SVX would look like had it been the MARKETING success it deserved to be.
Not sure if that was a battle that could ever be won, at least at that time. Even now, when $35,000 isn't really a mega-buck price for a car people still think "yeah, but for a Subaru?"
Can't really blame the car mags of the day as I seem to remember all of them singing its praises - although I think they went a little overboard on the supposed "quirkiness" of the SVX.

Yeah, to pass the time in night school (replacing a class i screwed up in), i buy some weird import tuner magazines. One of them said about the B11S:

It's doubtful that Subaru would put it in to production, but then again, they produced the SVX, so we'll see.

I was tempted to send them a letter with pics of some of our modded cars. (since they were a tuner magazine)

they didn't drive it long enough to warp them. ;) an easy fix, but kinda bad engineering putting skinny rotors on a heavy car.

i'm glad it wasn't popular. makes it more "exotic" (and low prices!)

>shrug< I dunno. My mom has a 92 honda accord with warped rotors. I think what a lot of you don't realize is that rotors eventually warp, no matter what the car. :)

And I agree about the popularity. WTF is that?! hehe. It rules.

- Rob

maybe i'm spoiled from the "hand of God" Porsche brakes, but at the same time, i had a '90 P.O.S Lumina with 135k miles that i beat the hell out of, but the rotors never warped.

I love cars that I don't feel bad about beating the crap out of! I generally try to be good to my '93 Toyota 2WD p/u, but I have no mercy in the corners and on the brakes. :-)) (It actually handles quite well with shocks that have a bit more damping and 15" rims with lower profile tires.)