2018 Subaru XV vs 2017

What's the difference?

Subaru has a long history in Australia, and it can trace its adventurous origins all the way back to the early 1980s with the advent of cars like the Sportswagon and the ubiquitous Brumby ute. In fact, Subaru still typifies the affordable adventure car, with cars like the Forester and the Outback on its books.

The XV, meanwhile, sits somewhere in the middle of the two Subaru extremes, offering quirky inner city style with a genuinely useful adventure bent. 

Subaru is a small SUV in the same way that I'm Usain Bolt; we both technically belong to the same species, sure, but there are a couple of sizeable differences. The ability to run 100m without a single rest stop, for example.

And so it is with the Subaru's XV, which stands light years apart from the regular small SUV crowd. For one, it's bloody massive, trending closer to a mid-size SUV than it does a tiny Mazda CX-3. Plus, it's not really an SUV at all, looking much more like a high-riding wagon than a traditionally shaped urban warrior.

Clearly Subaru is onto something; the XV has been a monster hit, sitting fifth outright in small SUV sales this year, and cementing itself as the brand's outright best seller in Australia.

All of which goes some way to explaining why this all-new 2018 model appears - looks-wise, at least - near-identical to the outgoing car. If it ain't broke and all that.

But we figure there must be some new stuff going on under the surface, so we climbed behind the wheel of the top-spec 2.0i-S to take a closer look.