Junkyard Find: 1991 Subaru XT6

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

As I’ve mentioned before, Colorado junkyards are full of Subarus of the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Mostly I’m sort of indifferent to Subarus of this era, with two important exceptions: the BRAT and the XT. Both are fairly rare (the last time I saw a junked XT was last year, when I found this Juggalo-abused ’91), so I came to a screeching halt when I found this XT6.

Someday I will own an XT, though I’m torn between the pseudo-powerful XT6 and the digital instrument cluster of the XT Turbo. Such science-fiction optimism and goofy lines!

The era of loony-looking steering wheels like this ended when airbags became mandatory equipment. In ’91, manufacturers could substitute those maddening automatic seat belts for airbags.

These cars were supposed to have aircraft-influenced styling, which was the reason for the Ki-61-esque shift lever.

Remember analog EQs on car stereos?

Using “H” to designate a boxer engine just never seems right. Maybe call this one an ɛɜ6?








Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Hgrunt Hgrunt on Jun 06, 2012

    A friend of mine in high school had the turbo version of this car with the absolutely nutty faux 3D digital dashboard, with the boost gauge, and a graphic of the car and it's suspension level setting. I remember thinking it was completely absurd that his parents had the engine rebuilt, because even then, the car was still a bit beaterish with faded paint, and a somewhat ratty interior.

  • MRF 95 T-Bird MRF 95 T-Bird on Jun 08, 2012

    Back in the late 80's early 90's there was one of these always parked on my street. Base model XT, really really base. light blue, FWD, steel wheels, black bumpers and no back seat, just a panel with a warning label telling you it is dangerous to sit there.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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