The Subaru SVX is one of the looniest cars ever put into production: a flat-six luxury coupe with a fighter jet canopy from a company that mostly just sold plain station wagons. But these two sides of Subaru once collided and gave us the Subaru Amadeus. Or, rather, not.




The Amadeus was sadly relegated to just being a concept car, shown at the 1991 Tokyo Motor Show, Subaru debuted it at the same time as when it showed the production version of the SVX, which it had previewed as a concept two years before.

Photo : Subaru via Play With Legacy RS


Technically the two cars were the same, except that the Amadeus was, well, a two-door wagon shooting brake thing.

Photo : Subaru via Play With Legacy RS

As such it was a little bit longer, but came with the same 3.3-liter boxer six, only slightly uprated at 250 horsepower and 230 lb-ft of torque, as Subaru claimed.


Subaru also claimed the Amadeus got a heads-up display, an electronic rear limited-slip diff, navigation and “Subaru New Suspension,” whatever that was.



And while the 1989 SVX concept became a real car, the Amadeus did not, though it was reportedly spotted doing some real-world testing, as Japanese Motor Business reported at the time. I might imagine that the entire Japanese economy collapsing shortly after the Amadeus debuted had something to do with it. Bummer.