This one is reassuring with 220 mm of clearance, a boxer heartbeat, and just enough cheek to make you wonder what would happen if you pointed it at the horizon and simply didn’t stop.
You look at a 2019 Subaru XV (a.k.a. Crosstrek) and think: “Ah yes, the sensible shoe of cars.” Then someone whispers the word “Dakar” and suddenly that same sensible shoe is stomping around your imagination in desert boots, kicking sand at machinery that costs the same as a small apartment.
Start with the numbers, because the numbers are the punchline. In road trim this thing is 4,465 mm long, 1,800 mm wide, 1,615 mm tall, and it sits on a 2,665 mm wheelbase. It weighs about 1,423 kg. Ground clearance is 220 mm, so speed bumps are less “obstacles” and more “strongly worded suggestions.”
Under the bonnet you get Subaru’s horizontally-opposed 1,995 cc four-cylinder with direct injection, good for 156 PS at 6,000 rpm and 196 Nm at 4,000 rpm, typically paired to a Lineartronic CVT. The CVT behaves like a rubber band that has read a self-help book about staying calm. Officially, 0–100 km/h takes about 10.4 seconds and it’ll run to roughly 194 km/h, which is plenty—unless your commute includes the Autobahn and poor decision-making.
Now, none of that screams “cross a continent at speed.” It screams “arrive at IKEA with your dignity intact.” But rally-raid isn’t about drag races. It’s about keeping your head, your traction, and your suspension when the surface is trying to renegotiate your relationship with physics.
And this is where the XV’s whole personality clicks. Subaru’s symmetrical AWD is basically a polite, stubborn promise: “I will keep pulling, evenly, even if the world becomes nonsense.” The car’s layout—front-engine, all-wheel drive—means the fundamentals are already in the right place for a Dakar daydream, because the grip doesn’t arrive as a surprise; it’s the whole point.
If you want proof Subaru takes the ‘desert’ part seriously, look at what it backed in 2019: the Subaru Crosstrek Desert Racer programme, run with Crawford Performance and Grabowski Brothers Racing in Class 5 Unlimited. The headline figure is a 2.5L non-turbo SUBARU BOXER built by Quirt Crawford, producing 300 horsepower. Subaru brought the car to the 2019 Baja 500 (487.11 miles, single-loop), in fresh blue-and-gold livery and aiming to improve on 2018’s second-place class finish. Subaru also stated the 2019 plan: defend the class title at August’s Vegas to Reno, then head to the Baja 1000 in November—and William Stokes (Subaru of America Motorsports Manager) essentially said: the results speak for themselves.
So “X-Trek Dakar 2019” works best as a theme: take the humble crossover footprint and lean hard into what Subaru already does—balance, grip, and a refusal to be embarrassed by bad surfaces. On the school run it’s measured, predictable, and quietly confidence-inspiring. In your head, with a skid plate, chunky tyres and a roofline dusted with imaginary sponsor stickers, it becomes a little myth: the everyday car that secretly believes it could cross a desert… provided you stop asking it to sprint like a hot hatch.
And that’s the charm. Lots of cars are fast. Fewer are reassuring. This one is reassurance with 220 mm of clearance, a boxer heartbeat, and just enough cheek to make you wonder what would happen if you pointed it at the horizon and simply didn’t stop.
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