NYIAS 2017: Subaru Goes Big - Real Big - With the Ascent

The Subaru Ascent concept SUV unveiled today at the New York International Auto Show heralds a very real vehicle with similar proportions, styling, and name.

While the model’s name aptly describes the automaker’s sales performance, the Subaru brand hasn’t fielded a large-ish utility vehicle since the slow-selling, second-generation Tribeca disappeared after 2014. With the Ascent, due to appear in production form in 2018, the brand delivers a three-row, seven-passenger vehicle with a wheelbase that’s longer than a Chevrolet Tahoe.

Incorporating massive fender bulges and a towering, blunt grille flanked by C-shaped corporate running lights, this vehicle represents a stark contrast to the Outbacks and Crosstreks so beloved by the buying public. It also gives Subaru its best chance to muscle into the fertile midsize CUV/SUV segment.

Scheduled to be built at the brand’s Lafeyette, Indiana assembly plant, the Ascent boasts 117 inches of wheelbase and a new, unspecified turbocharged Boxer engine. Expect that mill to displace 2.4 liters. Underneath, you’ll find a modified (read: stretched) version of the Subaru Global Platform.

Inside, Subaru has opted for the executive ambiance of having two second row seats separated by a wood-trimmed console, leaving the three-person bench in the rear. Much of the gee-whiz gadgets found inside this concept won’t see the light of day in a dealer lot, however. The touchscreens that serve as window switches will surely never appear in a production vehicle.

Since 2011, Subaru’s U.S. sales have risen from 266,989 units to 615,132 recorded last year. Building a larger utility model, especially one that doesn’t offend the senses (like the first-gen Tribeca), could open new sales doors.

[Image: Steph Willems/The Truth About Cars]