Subaru Crosstrek review

There’s a clear bias towards function over form in here: it’s pleasing enough to look at, thoughtfully laid out, and offers plenty of practical touches, but lacks the glitz and glamour of some of its rivals. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, for it certainly feels robust enough to cope with everything that family life entails.

And it’s comfortable too, with the front seats particularly supportive and the rear raised in height over the fronts and roomy enough, though that does mean headroom is a little limited. There’s also more door pockets and cubby holes dotted about for you to lose your belongings in than you’ll ever need.

WHAT’S THE TECH LIKE?

All versions of the Crosstrek get an 11.6-inch portrait touchscreen. It’s functional enough but let down by its horribly outdated operating system and naff graphics. Hopefully that’ll be fixed by a software update in due course. 

To either side of the gigantic display you get a couple of physical buttons to control the volume, radio station, front and rear demisters and driver/passenger temperature (with the fan speed controls permanently displayed at the bottom of the touchscreen), while Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come as standard. If you’re anything like us you’ll plug in and leave the rest well alone.

The instrument cluster remains refreshingly old school with its analogue speedometer and rev counter, with a small digital display sitting in between showing your mileage, mpg and suchlike. And the steering wheel gets proper switchgear too.

WHAT’S THE BOOT LIKE?

Seats up it offers 315 litres of space, while the seatbacks offer a 60:40 folding split, which is pretty much the norm these days. Still, should make squeezing in any active lifestyle paraphernalia easier. With both seats down you get up to 922 litres, while the low boot lip height makes loading/unloading shopping easy as you like.

Even so that’s rather small for its class, with the Honda HR-V’s 355 litre boot the next best thing, and the like of the Skoda Kamiq, Nissan Juke, Mini Countryman and Hyundai Kona all offering over 400 litres.