Subaru ‘Ascends’ to three-row crossover segment

Fuji Heavy Industries has needed a competitive three-row utility for its Subaru brand since its first attempt, the slow-selling Tribeca, bowed out after 2014.

The 2019 Ascent, the brand's largest-ever vehicle, fills that role on a lighter, stiffer, extended version of the new Subaru Global Platform (SGP) that launched with the fifth-generation Impreza and is slated to underpin every model in the portfolio. Available with a standard second-row bench seat or available captain's chairs, Ascent is powered by an all-new 2.4-L horizontally-opposed four-cylinder gasoline engine coupled to a revised version of Subaru's TR690 ‘Lineartronic’ continuously variable transmission (CVT) produced in house, and the company's torque-vectoring AWD system.