Subaru Alcyone SVX
The Subaru Alcyone SVX, also known
outside of its home market Japan as the Subaru SVX, is a two-door grand tourer
coupé that was sold by Subaru, the automobile manufacturing division of
Japanese transportation conglomerate Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI). Produced from
1991 to December 1996, it was FHI's first attempt to enter the
luxury/performance car market. Its intention was to combine two seemingly
contradictory elements—comfort and performance. The name "Alcyone" refers to the brightest star in the
Pleiades star cluster, on which the Subaru logo is based.
The Subaru Alcyone SVX made its debut,
as a concept car, at the 1989 Tokyo Auto Show. Italian automobile designer
Giorgetto Giugiaro of ItalDesign designed the slippery, sleek bodywork, incorporating design themes from his other concepts, such as the Ford Maya and
the Oldsmobile Inca. Subaru decided to put the concept vehicle into production
and retain its most distinguishing design element, the unconventional
window-within-a-window. Subaru called this an "aircraft-inspired
glass-to-glass canopy," which was adapted from the previous model Subaru
Alcyone with an additional extension of glass covering the A-pillar. The
decision to release this car for production gave the public the first
opportunity to buy a "concept car" as conceived. The suffix
"SVX" is an acronym for "Subaru Vehicle X".
In contrast to the boxy, angular XT, the
SVX had curvy lines designed by Giugiaro and the unusual two-piece power side
windows. The windows are split about two-thirds of the way from the bottom,
with the division being parallel to the upper curve of the door frame. These
half-windows are generally seen on exotic vehicles with "scissor",
"gull-wing", or "butterfly" doors, such as the Lamborghini
Countach, De Lorean DMC-12 (another Giugiaro design), and the McLaren F1. The
SVX's aerodynamic shape allowed it to maintain the low drag coefficient of
Cd=0.29, previously established by the XT coupe it replaced. European market
cars had a slightly lower wind resistance of Cd=0.285, thanks to a larger
undertray.
From 1991 to 1992, Subaru displayed the
Amadeus, a prototype shooting brake variation on the SVX, in both two- and
four-door versions, which was considered for production. Ultimately the
Amadeus was not produced.
Unlike the previous model, which had
been available with either a turbocharged flat-four (as XT) or a naturally
aspirated flat-six (as XT6), the SVX debuted with and remained available with
only one engine, the EG33 model 3.3-liter boxer horizontally opposed flat-six.
This engine was the largest engine produced by Subaru for its passenger cars
until the introduction of the 3.6-liter EZ36 engine in the 2008 Subaru Tribeca.
The previous generation Subaru Alcyone had installed a turbocharger on the four
cylinder engine, but the larger EG33 was more powerful and a turbo was not
installed.
Internally, the engine is essentially a
six-cylinder variant of the EJ22 found in the first-generation Japanese market
Legacy and Impreza. The new 3.3-liter variant was equipped with dual overhead
camshafts and four valves per cylinder, and had an increased compression ratio
of 10.1:1, bringing horsepower up to 231 hp at 5,400 rpm with
309 Nm of torque at 4,400 rpm. Fuel delivery was
accomplished with sequential multi-port fuel injection with dual spray
injectors. Engine ignition used platinum spark plugs and a computerized
management system with "limp home feature", which included over-rev
protection, monitors fuel injection and ignition.
The exhaust system consisted of head
pipes from each bank of cylinders with their own pre-catalytic converters,
which entered a dual-inlet / single outlet main catalytic converter. A single
2.5-inch (64 mm) exhaust pipe exited the main converter and went into a
resonator, and onto the main, transverse, single inlet muffler with twin
exhaust tips in the bumper.
All early versions of the SVX sold were
equipped with automatic transmissions, as a manual transmission capable of
handling the horsepower and torque of the EG33 engine was not produced by
Subaru at the time. Depending on the country, Subaru had two versions of
their all-wheel drive system for the automatic transmission, called ACT-4 or VTD.
The first system, called ACT-4 (active torque split) by Subaru, was the same
setup commonly found on other Subaru models of the period, and used a variable
clutch pack center differential using a 90/10 power split ratio front to rear,
which could transfer up to a 50/50 power split ratio for maximum traction if
the front wheels started to slip.
This AWD system was offered throughout the
entire production run, and was used in vehicles manufactured for sale in the
US, Canada, Germany, France and Switzerland. A sportier continuous traction
delivery system, called VTD (variable torque distribution) by Subaru, was used
in vehicles for sale in Japan, the UK, the Benelux region, Sweden, Australia,
Spain, Austria and Brazil. The VTD AWD system is a permanent AWD due to its
36/64 split.
The Japanese-spec "SVX L"
received four-wheel steering in 1991 and 1992, model code "CXD"
(1,905 built). The VTD equipped versions received the "CXW" chassis
code. In an attempt to lower the price for the US market, a front-wheel drive
("CXV") was offered in 1994 and 1995 but sales weren't abundant.
