#Subaru

By the early 2000s, Fuji Heavy Industries was raking in fat piles of yen by selling slightly lifted Subaru Legacy wagons with plastic cladding, weather-band radios, and a general air of outdoorsiness. The real money, though, would come from selling SUVs in North America, and so the Legacy chassis got the growth-hormone treatment and a truck-inspired body. This was the Subaru B9 Tribeca, which made its debut as a 2006 model.

Hello from sunny Southern California. You may notice a later-than-usual posting schedule today and tomorrow as we work our way through the LA Auto Show -- we're sorta working on West Coast time.

Which brings me to the QOTD -- what debut from this show has you perking up?

Attention, Midwest-based Subaru fans.

The 2022 Los Angeles Auto Show media is about two weeks away. For the most part, there hasn't been a lot of news leaking about planned debuts, though we know Ram has plans for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, instead. That said, Subaru has dropped a teaser of the next Impreza.

The Alcan 5000 Rally might not be what you think of when you think of rallying a car. It’s not an event chocked full of sideways-sliding Subarus or overpowered hatchbacks catching air over hills as hundreds of fans gaze as rabid drivers hurtle through the woods in search of the fastest stage of a gravel rally.

Subaru will launch an updated Crosstrek in the United States next year and showcased the Japanese model on Thursday to whet our appetites.

Though nobody at the company seems overly eager to reinvent a model offering such enviable sales figures. Most of the changes seem to be aesthetic in nature, with the exterior seeing some new creases – resulting in a more complicated and pleasing overall shape. There’s also been an increase in the number of plastic panels used on the vehicle’s exterior. However, this doesn’t look as disagreeable as it sounds.

Prior to the 1980s, Subarus were known by Americans more for being tiny and cheap than anything else (though some car shoppers in snow-prone areas came to appreciate Subaru's optional four-wheel-drive system during that time), but then the bigger second-generation Leone went on sale here for the 1980 model year and Subaru became quite a bit more mainstream on our shores. Today's Junkyard Find is one of those second-gen cars, found in a Colorado self-service yard.

Stylists at the Exploding Galaxy have tweaked the front end of their Outback and Legacy models for 2023, with a wide-mouth mason grille now bookended by redesigned LED headlamps. There’s also a smattering of new technology, all of which the company figures is worth a $1,000 price hike.

And, in the fine print, we learned Subaru is now charging different Destination & Delivery charges for different states.

Toyota and Subaru are recalling their new all-electric models, though EV fans will be pleased to know that the issue has nothing to do with the battery packs. Instead, the affected vehicles run the risk of losing their wheels under sudden braking or sharp turns — which I suppose isn’t much of an improvement over the possibility of an electrical fire.

The good news is that the problem is limited almost entirely to demo models of the Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra the companies wanted to use for promotional purposes. While they may eventually have found their way into residential garages, the original intent was to have them attend trade events and serve as test models on dealership lots. That’s likely to remain the plan, too. But only after the automakers comply with the demands of Japanese regulators.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – or at least that’s the tack Subaru of America seems to be taking with their popular Crosstrek. Forging ahead for the 2023 model year, the little tall wagon crossover sees a microscopic bump in price and the addition of different paint options. There’s also a new trim level for those of you who play ridiculously detailed games of Car Bingo.

The General began selling the Suzuki Cultus hatchback with Chevrolet Sprint badges here starting in the 1985 model year, with the later versions becoming the Geo/ Chevrolet Metro. Even though gasoline prices had crashed during the middle 1980s, the three-cylinder Sprint sold well enough that Subaru decided to bring their tiny three-cylinder car to our shores. This was the Justy, and I’ve found this ’90 in a self-service yard in Subaru-crazed Denver.

The 2022 New York Auto Show isn’t the first major auto show to be held since COVID-19 shut the world down in March 2020 – Chicago had shows in 2021 and 2022, and Los Angeles was in its usual slot last year. And there was Motorbella in Detroit last summer.

Still, for whatever reason – the loosening of COVID restrictions, the fact it was the first New York show since COVID, the presence of NY-based journos who don’t deign to travel west of the Hudson for those other shows – there was a pre-show feeling that this was it. This would be the show that marked the return of normalcy. Not LA in 2021 or Chicago just a couple of months ago – no, it would be this one.

In the wake of the news that Subaru is killing the WRX STI going forward, it appears that the STI is already dead on the company’s U.S. and Canadian consumer Web sites.

Hi there! Remember that podcast we did a few weeks back? Well, we’re back with more.

There’s also more to come.