Subaru owners are without doubt a loyal breed among motorists.

They love their cars with a passion, which is unusual in other marque owners, they prefer to keep them for a long time.

For example I have a friend who has had one for years and despite it’s been battered and bruised by almost a decade of hard driving she refuses to get rid of it.

Get her talking about a replacement and she might just be persuaded into thinking of a new car - but only if it is another Subaru. She hasn’t done it yet!

And the facts don’t lie because more than 99 per cent of the Subarus sold in the UK are still on the road. This means that the average Subaru will have travelled eight times around the world.

However the motoring elite tend to be a bit sniffy about Subarus, and the new Levorg didn’t do particularly well in the driving magazine write-ups.

Levorg is a name which comes from a combination of Legacy, Revolution and Touring which were names that previously used on Subarus Boxer engine all wheel drive vehicles.

And the Boxer engine continues to punch its weight here again. It is called Boxer because of the punch-counterpunch of the horizontal pistons within the lightweight, aluminum-alloy engine block.

But I enjoyed my time with the Levorg with its spacious cabin and there’s no doubt it is both solid and extremely well equipped.

Coming in at just short of £29,000 it can tow a trailer or horsebox with a one and half tonne capacity while doing around 40 miles to the gallon. Top speed is just over 130 mph and 0-62 mph is reached under nine seconds. The CO2 is 164g/km.

While sales in the UK are not actually brilliant Subarus did sell around one million four-wheel drive cars around the world last year. In fact they have been building all-wheel drive vehicles for the last 50 years and so far they gone passed the 15 million mark.

The Levorg replaced the well known Legacy a couple of years ago and the latest one has been refreshed and the powertrain, suspension and chassis are the same as the older model. The exterior and cabin are similar as well.

If you want to see one of them at work just have a look at ITV4 on a Sunday when the British Tour Car Championship is in action. There it is up against the Honda Type Rs and similar BMWs and doing quite well, after ironing out the early problems.

The Levorg has the 1.6i GT Lineartronic petrol engine mated to a CVT gearbox giving an acceptable performance and it is quite smooth on the roads.

Body control in the bends is good with loads of grip and it feels quite agile for its size. The ride is on the firm side.

Cabin quality is pretty good and has been improved since the previous model.

Subaru has brought on board an eyesight system which is a dual-camera set-up mounted in the plus like features such as pre-collision braking, adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist.