Subaru XV

Never is it pleasurable to open road-test proceedings on a gloomy note, but this week’s subject, the Subaru XV, arrives with its maker flailing for relevancy.

Subaru’s UK market share was just over a tenth of a per cent in 2016, and somehow that fell last year. Consider that the reason you see so few of these star-spangled Japanese cars is that no single model can drag itself into four-figure sales, although business in the brand’s homeland and the USA is much more healthy.

Here, though, it seems the only way is up.