Rare Rides: A 1990 Subaru Legacy Wagon, Sold Back to Subaru

Today’s Rare Ride is an example of utmost care and maintenance. It’s a 31-year-old wagon which was driven and kept in showroom condition over more than 200,000 miles.

This particular wagon was unique enough that Subaru purchased it for their collection.

At the end of the Eighties, Subaru started to revise the way it approached car design. Not content with a small slice of the pie at the quirky end of the car market, the company knew it would need more mainstream appeal to generate some mainstream sales. In North America, Subaru’s largest car on offer through the Eighties was the compact GL, which over time changed its name to Leone, and eventually Loyale.

Though still on the compact side, the new Legacy was larger than the Loyale, much more modern looking, and more suited to American tastes. It entered production in 1989 and debuted in North America for model-year 1990. Legacy was offered in sedan, and (more crucially to its customer base) wagon body styles. All first-generation Legacies were powered by four-cylinder power in boxer configuration. Displacement ranged from 1.8 to 2.2 liters, in naturally aspirated and turbocharged guises. Most North American examples were fitted with the naturally aspirated 2.2-liter, for adequate if not brisk forward movement. Transmissions on offer were a four-speed auto or five-speed manual.

Moving towards the middle in terms of design worked for Subaru. The Legacy established itself as more than a bit player, and offered all-wheel drive for consumers who didn’t want an agricultural Jeep, or couldn’t afford something like an Audi 5000 Quattro. The Legacy was a compact car for precisely one generation. In 1995 it moved on up to the midsize class where it could compete more directly with Camry and Accord, neither of which offered all-wheel drive. It continues in that mode to this day, albeit without a wagon variant.

In the Legacy’s first model year in North America, someone purchased today’s Rare Ride and began taking exceptional care of it. In late 2019 it was purchased by an enthusiast of Japanese and Nineties automobiles on a whim. The seller reports he was not looking for a Subaru, but was taken with the condition of this particular example and decided to grab it. There are many breathless paragraphs about this in the extensive ad linked below.

The Legacy needed a bit of work, namely on suspension bits which were old and tired, tires, and other things made of rubber. Its new owner set about restoring the questionable parts of the car to factory condition, and reports spending around $6,000 to get everything up to snuff.

Job done, it was time to part with the Subaru so it was put up on Craigslist in the San Francisco area for $6,800. The seller received one particular offering of interest, from the company that built the car. Subaru of America reached out to buy the Legacy, to add it to their private museum collection in New Jersey. They took it into their possession a couple of weeks ago, so this particular Legacy will be forever preserved.

[Images: Subaru]