After a little searching it looks like this is 1 of just 2 manual 2014 Mocha Steel Metallic CTS-V Wagons. Only 5 others were made, all in 2012. It’s not the rarest combo, but it’s pretty close.

The efficiency gap is a little confusing. Somehow the 2015 GTS gets 2 mpg *more* combined than just the regular 2015 S. I’m not sure how that’s possible. That means a 2015 S is ever so slightly more efficient than a 2019 S.

Too true. The Levorg lament.

A shame. Once Maserati sorted the car it was quite good. But it took a few years. People forget that almost every turbocharged car of that era required a number of years to improve. Even Porsche had issues early on.

The Baja turbo could manage 7 or so but that’s it. Of course, that was before Subaru cared deeply about fuel economy, which has shot up drastically since the days of turbocharged everything and 4EATs.

No, we haven’t seen dual-range Subarus since the 1980s IIRC. Of course, some of the latest Outback/Forester in the States have the X-mode feature, which simulates a crawler gear setting using the CVT.

I owned an Outback Sport with the 2.5. Very fun to drive, very bad fuel mileage for the power and size of the car.

Wait, I’m confused. I don’t think it’s a surprise the Forester with the 2.5-liter is going to get better mileage than the 2.0-liter, which was turbocharged in the third and fourth generations.

Thanks for making this point. The old Outback Sport was fun to drive, especially with the stick. The throttle tuning was fairly aggressive, and it was torquey. But gas mileage wasn’t very good. And, of course, that generation of EJ25 had a raft of problems, not just head gaskets.

The “refinement” angle is a little lacking, but otherwise perfect: 4x4, good for towing, not likely to be stolen. Of course, the buyer is already used to lack of refinement in the X.

The ‘blazer SS/Aero absolutely has AWD, but it’s specifically for on-road performance. It’s RWD with a limited-slip diff until the front loses traction. Then the Torsen center routes power forward.

Unfortunately, Maserati only sold about 4 of the good ones. Interesting cars, though.

A manual could be a plus because it means one less thing to go wrong...and that matters a lot for an allroad. The tiptronic is fairly reliable and decent to use from what I hear. I have a similar type of transmission in a Saab and I don’t really miss the manual that much.

I think it’s mostly the flexibility of turbocharging in general. Subaru can mess with a lot of things, from the compression ratio to the size/type of the turbo, and still hit performance targets.

You mean the FA24 vs Jeep’s turbo 4? Well, yeah, but they are almost all in the same ballpark, from VW to Buick to BMW to Merc.

Ah yes that’s right, never mind. It just has that front subframe for the engine.

I don’t think a boxer engine is quite apples-to-apples with the AMG four as far as power goes. The cooling issues are a lot more challenging for Subaru. They can’t simply flip the engine around to put the intake on the front like Merc did. Four hundred horses is probably appropriate for the new engine, depending on…

The combo of a very big cargo area (78 cu ft) and a fuel-efficient 2.0T with AWD is sort of unique. The Santa Fe has a similar powertrain but it’s smaller. The Passport is just as big inside as this Atlas but you don’t get a turbo option, just the V6. I think all of the others have smaller cargo areas.

Yeah, the Atlas is not as awful as some other low-cost three-rows (I’m thinking of the Pathfinder), but the Touareg was a lot nicer in many ways. The Atlas is far better with utilizing interior space, which is why the notion of an intentionally smaller, less practical Atlas is sooo SMH.

The 2.0 is better... better fuel mileage, better torque delivery. Not much less power than the V6. And it doesn’t need premium gas.