Subaru EG33

Subaru's 3.3 flat-six — the EG33 — in the SVX and nothing else.

⚑ It was fitted to one model, for five years, in small numbers, and that is the whole ownership story. Parts are scarce, specialists are individuals rather than businesses, and an engine problem on an SVX is frequently what ends the car.

It is essentially two EJ22s sharing a crankcase, which is the useful route in: much of the four-cylinder's material describes the same components, and the EJ family's habits — head gaskets, oil leaks from the cam seals — carry across.

It is belt-driven and it is an interference design, on cars now thirty years old whose history is rarely documented.

The gearbox behind it is the more common failure on an SVX and is frequently blamed on the engine, which is worth establishing before anything is stripped.