Michael SimariCar and Driver
Ask an enthusiast to name the most iconic Subaru and they’re likely to say the WRX. But while the blue-car-with-gold-wheels cult is strong, its scope is limited to people who buy Prodrive mud flaps and know who Ari Vatanen is.
For the rest of the planet, Subaru is synonymous with the Outback. That toughed-up wagon is to Subaru what the 911 is to Porsche or the Wrangler is to Jeep. Subaru doesn’t make a big deal about that, but it has been nearly 50 years since the company introduced its ur-Outback, the 1972 Leone four-wheel-drive wagon. That car established the formula that’s been in place ever since: flat-four engine, all-wheel drive, and a wagon body style. The trusty Subaru wagon was out there plying the unplowed roads of the northern climes long before Subaru stirred together body cladding, marketing, and the Legacy wagon to create the first Outback in 1994.
Slow(er), Steady
The redesigned sixth-generation Outback will feel familiar to anyone who has driven a Subaru wagon of any era, especially with its naturally aspirated powerplant. There’s that off-kilter flat-four clatter allied to indefatigable traction and a grumbling willingness to climb any hill in any weather—as long as you’re not in a rush.
While you can still get a six-speed manual transmission in the compact Subaru Crosstrek hatchback, the Outback is strictly automatic—specifically, a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) programmed with eight virtual gears. The standard 182-hp 2.5-liter boxer-four isn’t particularly well suited to pairing with a CVT, in no small part because its torque peak—176 lb-ft—doesn’t arrive until 4400 rpm. Which means that the CVT’s theoretical eight speeds don’t come into play until you’re already well underway, because the engine has to reach that torque peak and eek out some acceleration before the transmission can pretend to shift. So, off the line it feels as if the Outback has a really tall first gear; you’re past 50 mph by the time the transmission allows the revs to drop.
The turbocharged Outback XT model, which we’ve previously tested, fares much better with the CVT simply because the turbo engine’s beefy low-end torque helps disguise the transmission’s shortcomings. In a zero-to-60-mph run, the naturally aspirated car clocks a meandering 8.5 seconds. The XT does that in a far more acceptable 6.3. Should you ever flog an Outback all the way to 110 mph, the XT will get there an astounding 16.5 seconds quicker than the non-turbo. If “Vermont sports car” means anything to you, you’ll want an XT. And if you plan to tow your gutted bug-eye WRX to the local rallycross, the XT is better suited for that, too. The 2.5-liter Outback can tow only 2700 pounds versus 3500 for the XT.
A Lot to Play With and Take in
Outright performance aside, the Outback’s naturally aspirated Touring model mostly duplicates the Touring XT’s equipment level. (One minor yet notable difference: There’s dual-pane, sound-attenuating front door glass on the XT.) You can spec the base-engined model along with a healthy list of options, including heated and ventilated front seats, a heated steering wheel, and java-brown nappa leather upholstery. If you love colors and textures and materials, you’re in luck, because the Outback’s interior offers all of them, all at once. Where the front door panels intersect the dash, we counted five different colors, seven textures, and more quadrilaterals than M.C. Escher’s “House of Stairs.”
The tony Touring model trades the standard dual 7.0-inch console screens for one big 11.6-inch central touchscreen, which is used to mostly good effect. Bummer that the seat heater buttons are virtual and require multiple taps of the screen, but it is cool that the touchscreen’s simple menus enable easy access to the deeper minutia of the car’s electronic settings. For instance, there’s a menu that allows the driver to select one of four levels for how aggressively the cruise control resumes its operation. We went with level 4, “dynamic,” in which the Outback storms to your set speed with Bostonian impatience.
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The touchscreen also provides access to X-Mode, the Outback’s off-road setting. We didn’t really go off road, but the Outback ran out of approach angle before it ran out of traction on a diagonal climb up a steep banking. Translation: It’ll pull a rear tire off the ground and keep climbing, so long as the front bumper isn’t stuffed into the hillside.
EyeSight, Subaru’s camera-based driver assistance system, is standard on all Outbacks and includes adaptive cruise control and lane centering. One underrated feature: the system’s ability to figuratively smack you upside the head if you space out at a traffic light. If you’re stopped at a light and the cameras notice the car in front of you pull away, the system will wait a moment and then chirp to rouse you. EyeSight’s lane-keeping function is decent—the wheel tends to squirm as you and the car debate the precise location of the lane center—but you can use the adaptive cruise without lane-keeping, if you prefer.
An Everyday People Pleaser
At $27,655, the 2020 Outback’s base price is only $300 more than last year’s model. The fully loaded Touring edition is $38,355, which seems like a fair deal given the comprehensive level of standard equipment. However, we are duty bound to point out that there is a less lavishly equipped turbocharged model, the Onyx Edition XT, which costs only $35,905. The naturally aspirated car does triumph over the turbo when it comes to fuel economy, delivering an EPA-estimated 29 mpg combined, or 3 mpg better than the XT model’s. The Outback’s capacious 18.5-gallon fuel tank means bathroom breaks likely will be more frequent than fuel stops on road trips. We managed to extract 28 mpg in our 75-mph highway driving test with both engines.
The naturally aspirated Outback will work just fine for the legions of Subaru wagon loyalists who want to get up the mountain but don’t need to get there first. Some of us, though, are thinking that the XT would look about right with some Prodrive mud flaps.
Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
