The Limited is anything but, and all my £2000-pricier Touring adds is 18in rather than 17in wheels, black rather than grey door mirrors, high-beam assistance and an electric tilt-slide sunroof.
That last item is a pleasingly retro affair, with a flimsy manually operated cover that reminds me of my dad’s 1986 Rover 820i, but it really does brighten up the interior, which is fairly unremittingly black otherwise – albeit clearly very well screwed together.
The sunroof isn’t the only throwback inside: if you’re the sort of person (and I count myself among their number) who bemoans the ever-increasing number of touch-sensitive – or, far too often, insensitive – controls in modern machinery, this car is for you.
There is a touchscreen for the infotainment, and a pretty good one at that, increased from 8.0in in the old XV to 11.6in here, but elsewhere there are lots of traditional switches, some even making an old-school click-clack sound.
Indeed, a sense of no-nonsense practicality pervades. The interior is surprisingly roomy for what isn’t a huge car and the back seats in particular feel spacious (at 6ft 3in, I can sit behind the driver’s seat when it’s set up for me), although the rear seatbacks are very short and head room is rather at a premium.
Space is even more limited in the boot: the battery for Subaru’s e-Boxer hybrid system sits under the floor, so there’s no extra storage and it’s pretty shallow, leading to a meagre 315 litres with the seats up.
In the front, however, the seats are really comfortable, with an odd blend of sitting fairly high, due to the jacked-up suspension, but deeply set within the car.
Comfort levels are further augmented by the ride, which Subaru has worked hard on to make this car well tuned for road use without compromising the marque’s famed off-road ability.
There’s 10% more torsional rigidity than in the old XV, and that’s more than mere PR guff: open the rear doors and you will see secondary latches at the base of each to anchor them to the body.
