What Makes A Subaru A Subaru (Aside from the Halo)?

37 Comments on “ What Makes A Subaru A Subaru (Aside from the Halo)? ”

• Orangutan :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:18 am
  
  

  Good lord that thing is hideous. It reminds me of an overwrought first-generation G35 from some angles. Ack. It’s horrendous.

• chaparral :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:18 am
  
  

  That… doesn’t look like a Subaru.

  What happened to the slim and slick look?

• Lichtronamo :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:20 am
  
  

  YIKES!!!

• RedStapler :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:21 am
  
  

  The design DNA of a Subaru is a Boxer Engine and AWD System. That and distinctive styling that ventures off the beaten path.

• Brian E :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:38 am
  
  

  It’s ugly as all get-out. That’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.

• Detroit-Iron :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am
  
  

  Looks like a Hyundai

• Mirko Reinhardt :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:45 am
  
  

  Could we make a list of car makers NOT making cars with a Hofmeister kink?

• OldandSlow :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:48 am
  
  

  All wheel drive and a flat four to spin the tires are what makes a Subaru desirable in the snow belt, but they usually hard on the eyes from the outside looking in.

• 63CorvairSpyder :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:55 am
  
  

  RedStapler:

  Dittos

  OldandSlow:

  Partial dittos, my wifes Red ‘08 Forester Sport is a good looking small SUV. I don’t like ’09s nearly as much.

• Jordan Tenenbaum :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:57 am
  
  

  Looks like a mangled Camry.

• AllStingNoBling :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:58 am
  
  

  Well, let’s see: Ahh, there it is! That car is needlessly ugly. That’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.

• minion444 :
  January 11th, 2009 at 11:59 am
  
  

  Subaru stopped being Subaru along time ago.

  I miss the funky 4 wheel drive wagons of long ago. Hi/lo ranges, boxer engines. Hand adjustments to raise the suspensions and weak 2nd gear syncro’s.

  Come to think of it, they stopped being Subaru about the time Volvo and Saab lost their identities.

• sitting@home :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
  
  

  The good news is that production cars rarely look anything like the concepts.

  The bad news is they often look worse.

• seanx37 :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
  
  

  Wow, that is ugly. Who would have thought the flying vagina look was the high point of Subby design?

• Sabastian :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
  
  

  That is the ugliest car I’ve seen for quite sometime. I’d go so far to say that it looks like something that the Chinese would come up with (tall roof, slabtastic side panels, awful face).

• whatsanobeen :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
  
  

  Too bad.
  The Legacy was one of my favorite Subaru models.
  This design looks terrible with its bulbous rear and the R-Class-esque headlights. Tsk tsk.

• jet_silver :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
  
  

  We’ve had the bug-eyed look, the flying-vagina look and the happy idiot look on WRXs during the past six or seven years. During that time the Legacys have been inoffensive if a bit bland. Now we have the “I’m a Little Teapot” look for a Legacy? In this design I see Nissan Sentra, Toyota Yaris and Ford God-knows-what. I’ve been planning to be first on my block with the upcoming 3.6L Legacy but if it looks like that the deal’s off.

  Serious question: anyone here have trouble reading instruments illuminated in blue? Red and white - on my Legacy - are easy for me to read but blue always seems blurry and out of focus.

• KalapanaBlack :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
  
  

  This is tragic. The current Legacy is, in my eyes, one of the most attractive and understated four-doors available at any price. It’s just a perfect mix of styling done with discretion and sporty character.

  This looks to have tons of Nissan/Infiniti DNA in the design language. Where the hell did that come from? On top of that, the details are hideous - the wheels and small AND badly designed, the rear lights look ripped straight from the hated current Ford Focus, yet blend into the trunk’s rear-facing surface even less successfully. The grille looks like a cheap, Chinese add-on.

  You know, Subarus were interestingly quirky at one time, then they gradually got more mainstream in most aspects (aside from flat-fours and AWD) and, at the same time, more attractive. Now, it seems they’ve hit the reset button and decided to implode voluntarily (Impreza, Forester, B9, this). I honestly don’t understand who approves these things at the corporate level. Nobody is going to buy this.

• ihatetrees :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
  
  

  Flat engines.
  Reliability to 200k miles.

  AWD? Call me an apostate, but recalling the Justy, I think Subie should build a good FWD small car.

• Mirko Reinhardt :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
  
  

  @ihatetrees :
  AWD? Call me an apostate, but recalling the Justy, I think Subie should build a good FWD small car.

  Enter the European Impreza 1.5F.
  And the European Justy, which is a rebadged Daihatsu Sirion. (Sirion is available with AWD, Justy is FWD only)

  In Japan, they have a lot more FWD-only machinery.

• hreardon :
  January 11th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
  
  

  Boxer engines
  All Wheel Drive
  Run to 250,000 miles with regular maintenance
  Dated design, questionable interiors
  Bulletproof

  I agree with other comments: the present Legacy is a great looking car, if a bit weak on the interior design/quality. This new design - yikes.

• 63CorvairSpyder :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
  
  

  jet_silver said, “We’ve had the bug-eyed look, the flying-vagina look and the happy idiot look on WRX’s during the last six or seven years”.

  Personally, I’ve always enjoyed being the bug eyed happy idiot looking at the flying vagina.

• qfrog :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
  
  

  That is so hideous, resale values of used Subaru products may rise come Monday.

• mtypex :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
  
  

  Subaru Sebring?

• Patrickj :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
  
  

  I don’t see the big hate myself. Yes, the nose and tail styling are overwrought, but:

  1. It’s a concept, even if close to the Legacy production car. It’s supposed to be overstyled.

  2. The nose and tail styling of everything else put on the road in the past 3 years is baroque. This should go away quickly as the economy continues to drop like a rock.

  We have an ‘04 Legacy wagon, and there’s nothing wrong with Subaru that couldn’t be fixed with a 20% gas mileage increase. I’m willing to give up some standard horsepower to get it as long as it has a solid 5 or 6 speed manual.

  Legroom says the only Subaru I’d buy for myself is a Forester anyway.

• Robert Schwartz :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
  
  

  And there I thought it was a Ford.

• Dr Lemming :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
  
  

  Sedans and coupes have never been Subaru’s forte styling-wise. Their franchise is wagons. As such, I’m inclined to withhold judgment until seeing a wagon version (I assume the sedan pictured above is a new-generation Legacy and that Subaru will continue to offer at least the Outback version of the wagon).

  That said, I’m a little worried. The picture suggests a pretty substantial redesign . . . yet the basic shell looks strikingly anonymous. Whatever else you could say about the previous Legacy body, it had character that set it apart from the competition.

  The other thing that strikes me about the design is its apparent lack of innovation. Smaller automakers generally can’t afford major redesigns very often, so are under greater pressure than the big boys to take great leaps forward. How does this accomplish that goal for Subaru?

• dean :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
  
  

  I second the Hyundai comment. If you block out the lower front clip it looks like a previous-get Tiburon.

  Jet_silver: I’ve never seen blue-lit instrumentation, but blue light is a brutal choice for a color for nighttime illumination. I think it must have something to do with the wavelength, but it is very hard to focus on something illuminated in blue.

• golf4me :
  January 11th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
  
  

  I have to be a bit contrarian here and opine that I really don’t like it. It’s too narrow, the wheels dont fill the wheelwells and the fender arches are really poorly done. It looks like a very 3rd-world design to me? It sure doesn’t look as good as the current one, and that’s not too hard to beat, either. Sad, because I like Subarus and would have considered this if it looked good. Maybe in a different color? Blacked-out rockers would go a long way in helping the lighter colors…I dunno.

• dgduris :
  January 11th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
  
  

  Someone, somewhere blogged that they thought the newly raised cowl height was a response to the Euro Pedestrian laws (hit ‘em high?). That’s too bad. Those wonderful flat 4 and flat 6 engines have allowed a nice low cowl over the last several years.

  This is Infiniti up front, Maxima along the sides and 5 Series out back…capped off with the last Passat’s arching roof line.

  It does have nicely proportioned overhangs, though. Something you can’t say about Audi. If they blend in the fender lines - taking more of an STi approach - I might be able to live with this. Heck, Subaru are soooo dependable, I am probably too afraid not to.

  STi package and maybe some “floppy” gear shift thingies for a 6-speed DSG, please.

• Detroit Todd :
  January 11th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
  
  

  Wow. How fugly. It looks to me like the bastard child of a Ford Focus and Saturn Ion.

  True to the Subaru fomula: Ugly, thirsty and overpriced.

• David Holzman :
  January 11th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
  
  

  No uglier than most cars out there. Much better looking than a Focus, or Caliber, although that’s not saying much

• Porsche986 :
  January 11th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
  
  

  I think if you strip away some of the glitz and intense ground-effects that make this a show car the basic car won’t be so bad.

  I still like Scooby.. :-)

  Where’s my boxer-diesel?

• ARacer :
  January 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
  
  

  Why. Why. Why does Subaru have to copy those idiotic S Class fender bulges. Someone must put an end to those things.

• dgduris :
  January 11th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
  
  

  @ARacer,

  Why? Oh! Why did Mercedes have to copy those idiotic Rx-8 fenders (front) Maxima fenders (rear) to put on that idiotic S-Class?

  But I digress.

  RF’s question was “What makes a Subie a Subie?”

  The answer - given the bulk of comments on nearly every Subaru post I have read on all of the car sites I frequent - is, quite simply…abject ugliness on the outside and love on the inside.

  On hot dry days and on cold slippery days like this one in PVD, right-footing or slicing up the twisties in any blown or 6-cyl Subaru is always a lovely thing.

  A bit like Shrek, I guess my 8-year-old might opine: ugly but lovely.

• puppyknuckles :
  January 11th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
  
  

  Looks like an Altima got into a head on collision with the Ugly train.

• Bridge2far :
  January 16th, 2009 at 9:38 am
  
  

  Rust buckets. Wings and spoilers and fart can exhausts.
  And that thing in the picture resembles a toaster.

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