Subaru Levorg - Best Performance Wagon | Auto Expert John Cadogan | Australia HD

So I’m test driving the Subaru Levorg GT-S - $54 grand, drive away, here in Australia - and I’m going: pretty tight car. It’s the whole family car package, which you can also punt. Really punt. Very practical. Very satisfying. Subaru has taken a car I love - the WRX - carnally, deeply love, and hitched a wagon on the back. How bad can it be? It’s like: Take that, mainstream SUV. If you want an SUV to feel about as emotionally engaging as a tumble drier, drive a Levorg. So: basically a really practical car with a double helping of friggin’ awesome. And I’m loving it, so I’m going: How would this baby compare with a car many people consider a benchmark? Like the C-Class? The C250 wagon. Pretty similar cars, on paper. Amazingly similar, on objective fundamentals. In fact, if you popped out of warp drive and landed here from Proxima Centauri tomorrow, for a weekend of, you know, terrestrial probing, which as I understand it is a very popular alien pastime, which would you conclude is the better car? You know, after probing it extensively, with your extra-galactic sensors? So let’s detain ourselves momentarily with an objective assessment. The Subaru is 1.2 centimetres shorter, 3 centimetres narrower and 4.8 centimetres taller. That’s a nine centimetres of lineal dimensional difference. Three-point-five inches in the old money. So the two vehicles are the same size, essentially. Both with two-litre direct injection turbo petrol engines. One’s a boxer, one’s inline. Both suck the same fuel (95 RON premium). But the Levorg makes 27 per cent more power (at essentially the same revs). And exactly the same flat peak torque response across a band of revs 2800 revs wide. Levorg is 45 kilos heavier, on tare weight. But it’s not enough to offset the power difference: Levorg’s power-to-weight is 24 per cent in front of the C-Class. That’s a lot. And Levorg drives through all four wheels, so it’s sure as shit going to get off the line faster - especially in the wet. These are objective facts, not some ‘body and the blood of Elvis’ mumbo-jumbo about alleged Merc mystical magic. You get leather, adaptive cruise control, lane departure, GPS, climate air, proximity key, power folding door mirrors, same warranty, on both cars. So that’s nice. But the C250 comes only with a reversing camera. Levorg adds a side camera vision to that. And Levorg has a standard sunroof and standard fog lamps. That’s three-and a half grand extra on the Benz - not an inconsiderable additional sum at these sorts of pricepoints.. Levorg’s got standard heated seats, with memory for the driver. That’s a grand extra in the C250. And premium paint is about $1500 on the Benz. It’s free on the Subaru. So, let’s see: It’s about $54 grand for the Levorg GT-S. But the un-optioned C250 is more like $72,000 - and when you add the sunroof and the seats and the paint it’s $78 grand. That’s a $24,000 price hike over the Levorg, with significantly less performance, and less tractive effort ev