Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., which makes Subaru vehicles, launched a remodeled Legacy wagon on the domestic market Friday, hoping the key product will reinvigorate the carmaker's sluggish sales.

"The Legacy is our chief product and can stabilize our management and boost our sales and profits," Fuji Heavy President Kyoji Takenaka said.

He said the model's annual sales target worldwide has been set at 220,000 units, about 40 percent of the carmaker's overall volume.

The new model will go on sale in Europe and Australia in the fall and in the United States next spring, he said.

The company hopes to sell 70,000 units annually in Japan, 120,000 in the U.S. and a combined 30,000 units in Europe and Australia.

The new Legacy features an advanced horizontally opposed engine with a displacement of 2,000cc.

This improves the vehicle's driving performance and boosts fuel efficiency by reducing vehicle weight by 100 kg, according to company officials.

Fuji Heavy is the only carmaker in Japan that mass produces vehicles with this type of engine, which can be placed in a lower position to boost stability at high speeds.

The Legacy sedan will be launched in Japan on June 23, priced from 2.05 million yen to 3.1 million yen.

While most other Japanese carmakers saw their sales rise in fiscal 2002, Fuji Heavy's global sales dropped 0.5 percent on a year-on-year basis to 540,000 units, partly because the older Legacy was losing popularity, company officials said.