-Lexman™ Posted February 4, 2021 Posted February 4, 2021 While most brands recorded substantial falls in registrations across the country, due to the pandemic, Subaru (which is run in the UK and Europe by British independent importer International Motors) was the hardest hit of any, with a year-on-year decrease of more than 68% compared with 2019. It shifted only 951 cars last year, compared with just under 3000 the year before. In August, Subaru’s 69 UK dealers clocked up just 34 registrations between them. “2020 was a horrible year,” admitted John Hurtig, who moved from heading up Subaru’s Nordic operation to become UK boss last summer. “What can you say? It’s just an embarrassing number. There’s no more context, to be honest.” Hurtig details some specific reasons that contributed to 2020 being one of the brand’s worst on record here, stating that “it’s not really as bad” as the numbers make it seem. “As a brand, we had a very high registration number in December 2019,” he explained. “In fact, it was actually the best month Subaru UK has had ever. So we went into 2020 with a big backlog.” Hurtig admitted this was entirely down to the company pre-registering cars en masse to avoid being handed hefty fleet-average emissions fines when the European Union’s new CO2-cutting regulations came into force in January 2020. All of those cars were sold throughout the year as discounted pre-registrations. There were two other crucial factors, Hurtig claimed, that meant Covid-19 and associated lockdowns did greater harm to Subaru than to other brands. One was its customer base. “Our target audience, is, to be honest, older people,” he said, “and those are the [biggest] risk group [for the disease]. So they have been very concerned about getting out there and doing business; that has been the feedback we get from customers. This might be one of the reasons it’s hit us more.” Perhaps even more significant, however, is what Hurtig describes as a need to “rebuild the dealer network from the roots”. He explained: “We’ve changed a lot of things within Subaru UK. We also need to change the structure of our dealer network entirely. There’s a lot of things we lacked in the past – from both sides of the business. I’m not just blaming the dealers; 50% [of the blame] goes back to us as an organisation as well.” While he acknowledges that there’s a “core” need for more Subaru presence in the UK, both in terms of dealers and investing more in marketing and brand awareness activities, more pertinent is actually getting those dealers engaged in the brand and on-message. “We need the right dealers,” he said. “It comes back to that. We can have the best marketing and brand awareness, but if the dealers aren’t on the same page, it’s useless. So this has to be developed hand-in-hand.” ADVERTISEMENT Find an Autocar review Make Select model Latest Drives 1 Audi SQ5 2021 first drive review hero front Audi SQ5 Sportback 2021 review 1 Audi Q5 Sportback 2021 first drive review hero front Audi Q5 Sportback 40 TDI 2021 review Merc GLC300e frontcorner Mercedes-Benz GLC 300e 4Matic 2021 UK review Vauxhall Crossland frontcorner Vauxhall Crossland 1.2 Turbo 130 2021 UK review 1 Xpeng P7 super long range Premium 2021 review hero front Xpeng P7 Super Long Range Premium 2021 review View all latest drives Read our review CAR REVIEW Subaru XV 2.0i Lineartronic SE Premium 2018 Subaru XV Can the crossover stand out from the crowd not only off-road but on tarmac too? Read our review Article continues below advertisement Back to top Hurtig has an “aggressive” plan to expand the network in the UK, hoping to establish 15 new sites this year alone, as well as bringing a “new attitude” across the board. Subaru also still finds itself suffering from a confused brand image that it must overcome. In the 1990s and 2000s, its reputation was firmly bolstered by the rallying success of the Impreza WRX STi, a model with a huge legacy that gradually fell out of favour in the face of a European hot hatchback boom and was killed off in the UK entirely in 2018.
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