Subaru has sold its 700,000th vehicle in Australia, as the local division of Fuji Heavy Industries celebrates 40 years on our shores.

Imported by Subaru Australia since 1973, Subaru reached the sales milestone with a new fourth-generation Subaru Forester XT Premium sold to a customer in Sydney last week.

Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior said Australia has long been one of Subaru's top four markets worldwide.

Subaru Australia

"It took 15 years for Subaru to sell its first 100,000 vehicles in Australia. The latest 100,000 has come in just 31 months."

While the majority of the vehicles sold have been all-wheel drive, recently the limited number rear-wheel drive Subaru BRZ sports car has proved successful too, so far selling 305 units since its launch in July, 2012. The BRZ's unrestricted sister car, the Toyota 86, has sold 2655 units since its June, 2012 launch.

Subaru says most of the 700,000 vehicles sold are split between the Forester (172,629), Outback (81,167), Tribeca (8053), Impreza (153,000) and Liberty (137,260), with a combined total of 562,806 units sold up to the end of January this year.

At the start of this year, Toyota marked 750,000 Toyota HiLux models sold in Australia, as 2012 saw a total of 40,646 deliveries for the year, for the ute that first launched in 1971.

Read CarAdvice's 2013 Subaru Forester Review.