The new Impreza 5-door hatchback. Photo courtesy of Subaru of America, Inc.

Subaru has always been a niche player in the US market. Building no-nonsense cars with all-wheel drive gets you a loyal following of snowbound northerners, weekend rally drivers, triathletes and Yankee cranks. Outside of those demographics, Subaru is a non-entity: Only those with dissociative identity disorder have ever cross-shopped a Legacy and a Lexus, and the Arkansas Subaru Dealers’ Association could have their annual meeting in a single booth at Shoney’s.

Once you fall down the Subaru rabbit hole, however, the cars on offer are quite diverse. In election-year parlance, that’s called “microtargeting” – tailoring a particular combination of a candidate’s attributes to appeal to extremely specific audiences, which is why you’ll undoubtedly see the Romney campaign aim TV ads specifically at gun-owning dressage competitors who live in Ohio.

It’s also why Subaru’s all-new 2012 Impreza evolved separately from the performance-oriented WRX lineup, to appeal to a wider group of consumers. The cars got a new look inside and out, a stiffer chassis and lighter curb weight. A new 2.0-liter all-aluminum engine lost horsepower and displacement from the previous generation’s 2.5-liter mill, but Subaru claims the new, lighter engine is actually more sprightly than its predecessor. Most importantly, the Impreza can now be ordered with a new continuously variable transmission (CVT) that helps to boost fuel economy by a whopping 36 percent, up to 27 mpg city and 36 mpg highway.

To reflect that repositioning, the Impreza’s advertising campaign got a slight tweak, too. There are still the usual spots with bearded thirtysomethings, dogs and bicycles, but there are also ads targeted at those first-time new car buyers who might find the other small, affordable, high-mpg offerings a little too ubiquitous. In other words, the new Impreza is a hipster Corolla.

Continue reading our review of the 2012 Subaru Impreza on Wired’s Product Reviews section.