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Junkyard Find: 1979 Subaru BRAT

Murilee Martin — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I find many old Subarus in Colorado wrecking yards. So many, in fact, that I don’t bother to photograph most of them. Usually, it takes an XT or a third-eye-equipped Leone to get my attention. However, a BRAT, no matter how trashed, is a very rare Junkyard Find, and I reach for the camera right away.
The BRAT has a fanatical following, which means that most examples are worth more than scrap value. This ’79 is pretty terrible indeed, which means that even the most devoted BRAT worshipers took one look and passed.
67 not-so-screaming horsepower lived under the ’79 BRAT’s hood. This was considered perfectly adequate for a small pickup during the Malaise Era.
But wait— this is no pickup! In order to circumvent Lyndon Johnson’s Chicken Tax, Subaru threw a couple of seats in the back, using these brackets, and carpeted the bed. That transformed the BRAT into a passenger car! Hardly anybody kept those stunningly dangerous jump seats in place, so you seldom see them today.
You can tell a truly hopeless junkyard vehicle when you see the mark from an engine being stored atop the hood for years prior to getting scrapped. I’ll bet there was a bullet-riddled water heater carcass nearby.

Junkyard Find: 1991 Subaru XT, Juggalo Inside

Murilee Martin — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:00:26 +0000

When I lived in California, I never saw a car covered with Insane Clown Posse paraphernalia in a junkyard. Colorado is a different story. When a Juggalo slaps some ICP stickers on his or her car here, it’s next stop, junkyard! Usually such cars are pay-it-no-mind Contours or Accords, and so I don’t really notice, but I’ve been not-so-secretly lusting after a Subaru XT as a winter driver and it pains me to see one end up like this.
Yes, this car is done. I just hope the driver was wearing a seat belt when the XT-versus-concrete-abutment incident occurred.
That’s right, no need to move a complicated lever (like older Subarus) or flip a confusing switch (like the AMC Eagle) to get four-wheel-drive in this car. Subaru had figured out by the time they built this car that throwing a center differential in the drivetrain meant that clueless drivers wouldn’t tear up their tires (or worse) by leaving their cars in 4WD for 3,000-mile drives on dry asphalt. Full-time!
Class of ’08! Well, young drivers sometimes have to use up a few cars before they get the hang of the driving thing.
Used to be, you put a Grateful Dead “dancing bear” sticker on your car to ensure that members of the law enforcement community felt an overwhelming urge to search you for contraband. These days, you want this sticker to get that reaction from John Law.
No amount of frame-straightening is ever going to make this car right. Next stop, Crusher!

The Scrappiest Car Maker Ever? A Brief Illustrated History Of Subaru

Paul Niedermeyer — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:39:04 +0000

That Subaru is still thriving is in itself a minor miracle. The small Japanese car makers have either imploded (Isuzu), are threatening to (Mitsubishi), or have sought shelter (even Subaru is now 20% owned by Toyota). Subaru did have its own near-death experience in the early nineties. But in a long string of wild bets, Subaru’s final card in the US was a big gamble on AWD, and the timing couldn’t have been better. And like most successful gamblers, there have been losses along the way (see above). But perhaps because of the bumpy ride, Subaru is still alive and kicking.

Fuji Heavy Industries was a consolidation of four firms in 1953, and decided to get in the nascent car business. The first car, the 1500 (above) of 1954, was a conventional sedan. But the market for such a relatively large car was very limited, so the next design was for the newly established kei car class, then limited to 360 cc engines. The Subaru 360 became the firm’s main product, but that it would be its first product exported to the US probably surprised themselves as much as anyone. And that it would somehow take off is one of the more unlikely success stories.

The 360 was clearly inspired by the VW Beetle, but it made the Volkswagen look enormous by comparison. A noisy and stinky little 2 cylinder two-stroke engine pushed the the silly little car around, but not in the way Americans were used to. Enter one small-time entrepreneur, Malcolm Bricklin. He had the idea to import the 360, probably(and not surprisingly), it was the only Japanese maker without any export plans to the US. How he sort of pulled it off is a minor miracle, but lets just say that in the land where pet rocks can make you a multi-millionaire, why not create a fad for a totally unsuitable (and unsafe) car. Americans’ gullibility is infinite.

Consumer Reports (rightfully) branded the 360 “The Most Unsafe Car In America”, and sales quickly petered out. But Subaru had a very advanced new car in the wings, which appeared just in time to bail out Bricklin and Subaru of America. He sold it to Subaru a few years later for big bucks, and went on to his many other notorious failures and successes (Bricklin SV-1, Bertone Fiats, Yugo, Chery, etc.).

In an example of how what goes around comes around, here’s a Subaru 100mpg experimental based on the 360 from the early seventies that looks ready for the X Prize contest going on currently.

The Subaru 1000 of 1966 was an extremely advanced design for the times, even by European standards. The ill-fated Lloyd Arabella of 1959 had a similar layout, but was never properly developed and crashed along with Borgward. By conservative Japanese standards, it was a breakthrough; the first mass-produced FWD car. A true clean-sheet approach resulted in what almost every engineer would favor if not constrained by other factors: a very compact boxer four mounted low just ahead of the driven front wheels.

The intrinsic balance of a boxer four make it smooth running (if not always so in its exhaust sound), and its location create an optimal low center of gravity. FWD resulted in an unusually roomy little car, offering better space utilization compared to its competitors, the RWD Corolla and Datsun Cherry.The original 1000 became the Star in 1969, and was imported to the US beginning about that time.

One of the unusual aspects about the 1000 was that it had no heater core, but rather it had two small radiators, one of which was used to like a heater core to heat the interior. And like many early FWD cars, the 1000 used inboard drum brakes at the front to reduce unsprung weight.

How Subaru came to be so heavily associated with 4 wheel drive was, like so many things, an accident, and not the result of market research or focus groups. In 1970, the Tohoku Electric Power Company asked Subaru to build them some four wheel drive versions of the 1000 wagon, to replace their elderly Jeeps. Given the configuration of the Subaru, it lent itself very readily to the conversion (see Subaru GL Wagon CC). One of the original handful of converted wagons has been restored and is on display (above). Little did Subaru know what a pioneering vehicle it had on its hands.

In 1971, the new Leone (DL/GL in US) series replaced the 1000/FF-1/Star. Strictly an evolution, it maintained the 1000′s basic configuration in a larger and more rationalized form: gone were the inboard brakes and weird heater setup. Styling was eccentric, which has been said to be influenced by Nissan, which bought a 20% share of Subaru in 1968. There’s no doubt that the Leone was somewhat similar to the Datsun F-10, and reflects one of the less desirable Japanese styling trends.

There was even a hardtop coupe in the Leone/DL-GL series. But the practical wagons and sedans were the mainstay of the Subaru lineup.

The 4WD wagon was first put in production in 1972, but introduced to the US in 1975. It is a major automotive milestone, as the first mass production popular priced 4WD passenger car. It spawned a revolution of the mass adoption of 4WD and AWD cars and crossovers.

A couple of years later, Subaru launched another innovative vehicle, the BRAT. Obviously influenced by the passenger car-based El Camino and Ranchero, the BRAT was the first of its kind in two significant ways: compact size and 4WD.

In order to get around the US “chicken tax” on imported pickups, Subaru mounted two rear facing seats in the bed to qualify it as a passenger vehicle. Ironic, given the lengths manufacturers have gone to get their cars certified as trucks under the EPA rules. Whether the BRAT was a toy or practical little trucklet depended on its buyers, but it launched a whole category that was rather short lived, with the VW pickup and the Dodge Rampage.

In 1979, a new generation of Subarus was unveiled. As always, wider, larger, and roomier; they moved on from the narrow-body that had tax advantages in Japan. A larger 1.8 engine powered most of the US bound versions, and for 1983, a turbocharged 1.8 with MPFI. Available only with an automatic, it also used Subaru’s firstfull-time all-wheel drive system, a forerunner of the more advanced recent systems. This was a substantial move to position Subaru upmarket, against the growing influx of all-wheel drive cars like the Audi 4000/80 quattro.

In case it wasn’t clear, Subaru expanded available 4WD to all of its models, including the coupe and hatchback. Although FWD Subarus were also being sold, Subaru was clearly leveraging its 4WD capabilities.

Subaru’s new Leone line for 1985 was another significant incremental step away from the Corolla class and into the Camry/Accord class. In the process, the scrappy little Billy Goat image was ever more falling by the wayside, which would come back to bite. A new OHC 1.8 engine powered this family of cars also known as the GL or Loyale in the US.

Subaru also branched out into the sporty coupe sector, with their (inevitably) individualistically designed XT Coupe. Available with four wheel drive or FWD, and a variety of engines including a turbo four and in the last years, the flat H6 engine that would reappear in the SVX. Aerodynamics were an excellent Cd .29.

Unlike most automakers, Subaru always realized the significant role wagons played in its lineup, and showed several concept cars on that theme, including this SRD1 from 1990.

In 1989, Subaru introduced the Legacy, a clear attempt to take the brand a small notch upscale. Its predecessor, the Loyale, was retained as a lower cost alternative. But although Subaru’s now well developed full-time AWD system was of course available, one couldn’t tell by looking. The old Subaru 4WD wagon’s jacked up ride height and tough demeanor was now lost in a soft and genteel low rider that was chasing the Camry and Accord, and rather futilely at that.

Sales trended downward precipitously during this period, and there were questions raised whether Subaru would survive in the most competitive market in the world. The fact that numerous competitors also were offering AWD variants of their cars hurt, and badly.

It was in response to input from Subaru USA that the Outback was created in 1995. The SUV boom was in full bloom, and this was Subaru’s last chance. The Outback jacked up the Legacy and threw some bigger tires and SUVish cladding for one of the most successful makeovers ever. It totally saved Subaru’s bacon in the US.

We’re running out of time and space to give Subaru’s more recent history full justice (including the little Justy, which we’ll cover in a CC soon). The Impreza of 1995 was a significant expansion of Subaru’s line up, but it didn’t really find its full potential until the brilliant WRX and its STI offshoots. Finally, Subaru was able to capitalize on its Rally success with a pocket rocket that put gave serious street cred to the mark of the Pleiades.

With the Forester’s appearance in 1998, Subaru once again had a more compact and tall wagon without the Outback’s affectations to appeal to the Subaru loyalists as well as compete successfully against the cute utes from Honda, Toyota and others. It’s car-like agility and excellent power for the times (essentially the same 2.5 L 170hp boxer still powering today’s Subies) made it a hit that is still going strong with the recent redesign.

Subaru’s only miss in recent years has been the Tribeca, which was too bloated, weak chested and weak kneed to make a mark for itself in the crowded mid-size CUV market.

Whether Subaru can maintain its momentum in the changing demands of the market and EPA regs that disadvantage AWD vehicles remains to be seen. Hybrids are on the way, and if they can properly blend and enhance with Subaru’s other qualities, Subaru may buck the trend and forge ahead. But to assume that that the road ahead for Subaru won’t be bumpy would be unrealistic, AWD or not.

Curbside Classic: The Revolutionary Four Wheel Drive 1977 Subaru Wagon (Leone)

Paul Niedermeyer — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:49:27 +0000

Honda CRV, Toyota Rav4, Audi Quattro, VW Syncro, and the whole host of all-wheel drive cars, crossovers and CUVs: they all trace their roots back to this skinny and ugly little Subaru 4WD wagon. Is this the most revolutionary and influential modern car?

Talk about a most worthy Curbside Classic. I’ve been looking for one of these since starting this long strange trip. Not only is the GL/Leone wagon the granddaddy of all modern Subarus, it’s also the progenitor of the whole genre of popular-priced four wheel drive passenger cars. That was once a substantial category: four wheel drive was available on wide variety of sedans and wagons from Honda, Toyota, Nissan, VW, Audi, Volvo and even the lowly Ford Tempo, among others. And since they evolved into today’s CUVs/crossovers, we can rightfully say that this homely little car was the catalyst for an enormous revolution in the passenger car industry, perhaps the most significant one in recent decades. And if that’s not enough, this is a daily driver with over 300k miles on it. Worthy indeed!

The history of Subaru (see separate post) and how they came to build this car is fascinating. Its roots go back to the highly advanced Subaru 1000 of 1965, a very advanced design even for European standards, featuring a water cooled boxer four mounted ahead of the driven front wheels. Given the drive train layout, it was the easiest type of configuration to adapt to that purpose, sending power back by extending the output shaft of the transmission to the rear. A drive shaft and rear differential and axle shafts more or less accomplished the trick.

Of course, we need to acknowledge that Subaru’s four wheel drive system of the times was strictly a part-time arrangement, since it lacked a center differential. Therefore, it was not full-time AWD, which was rightfully pioneered by the AMC Eagle. But the Subaru was still the breakthrough 4WD passenger car, and there’s little doubt that its existence may have stimulated the Eagle to some degree or another. Not that anyone connected to it would ever likely acknowledge it. But the fact that the Eagle came out five years after the Subaru 4WD wagon in 1975, and was clearly an evolutionary development of it cannot be denied.

For what it’s worth, Subaru’s part time arrangement was really quite satisfactory in practice, given that they already had superb traction with that engine hanging out in front of the drive wheels. There’s no comparison to what a standard RWD AMC Concord gained by AWD in traction. The FWD Subarus were about as good as it got in that respect, comparable to that traction-master, the VW Beetle.

Nevertheless, the 4WD Subaru was a revelation, especially to the stereotypical back-to-the-land-or-small-towns types in places like Vermont, Colorado, the North West, and anywhere where snow and rough roads were an issue. Subaru wagons were the typical replacement for the rusted out VWs that were finally giving up the ghost in those difficult environments. Of course, that has given Subaru a rather grossly exaggerated Birkenstock image, but the relatively higher levels of education and income of the Subaru demographic has held up through the decades. And obviously, they’re still huge in snow-belt and mountainous regions.

These little Subarus were truly the Billy Goats of cars; tough as nails, cheap to feed, and almost impossible to stop. Rust was the only thing that finally stopped them in their tracks, since snow and salt tend to go together. That probably explains why its taken me so long to find one. The tiny little boxer engine looks almost lost down there, and the fact that Subaru studied VW, Porsche and Corvair engines before designing theirs is obvious. The only question it raises is this: why the hell didn’t VW do the same thing, turning their boxers to the front and water cooling them? Today’s Golf would be just like an Impreza.

The tiny four started out with 1000 cc, and slowly grew through up to the final OHV version with 1600 cc. That’s what’s hiding under the spare here. The growling and throbbing of old Subaru engines is music to their fan’s ears. The owner of this one certainly loves these narrow-bodies; he own no less than eleven of them! Coupes, sedans, wagons; they’ve all come to him for a life extension. And they reward his appreciation with longevity: this one has over 300k on it.

The real goof ball originality-winner of this series of Subarus, which lasted through 1981, was the BRAT, which came out in 1977. I’ve seen a clapped out one on the streets here driven by a couple of kids, but haven’t caught up with it yet. It was a crazy attempt to jump into a market that nobody else had yet, the passenger-car based mini pickup, with 4WD no less. You got to hand it to Subaru for its gutsy ways.

Subaru 4WD wagons long ago became massively popular in places like Eugene (I happen to own one too). And it seems like only yesterday, these narrow-body Subies were still everywhere. No more. In fact , this car was in town from Portland for a knife show. And even the following generation is starting to get increasingly scarce. Time stands still not even for Subarus. But they keep cranking them out, although today’s Outback is a monster compared to one of these. But rarely has a car company cornered a segment of the market as successfully as Subaru. Thirty five years after the first 4WD wagon appeared here, both the original as well as its successors are still going strong. Not a bad track record.