Whilst I do love to build wheeled vehicles, I’ve never actually built a non-military one! And that’s odd since I have always had an interest in 1:1 scale automotive stuff. I purchased a Tamiya GR86 kit a little while back as I had once owned a Subaru BRZ, but am still yet to build it! I suspect that as I'm so accustomed to applying weathering effects over military vehicle's, I am a little intimidated by the smooth unblemished, immaculate paint finish that would be required.
I’ve always fancied building a few scale representations of cars I’ve driven over the years and that got me thinking about another predicament I found myself in. Getting the mancave ready I had planned a few upgrades, and one of them involved a trip to a hardware store. Trouble is, I didn't actually have a 1:1 scale car to pick the stuff up with!
I’ve been without my own mode of transport for almost nine months now and whilst I have access to my wife’s car, I’ve missed that automotive independence that most of us take for granted. I’m no spring chicken anymore and whilst I love driving, owning a few track cars along the way, speed is no longer as addictive as it once was. Priorities still include good build quality, good durability, and good handling characteristics, but I’m more inclined towards comfort with a more compliant ride and better cabin refinement, than all out performance these days.
The track was built on an old army camp
I’ve been actively looking for something for the past six months, but so far nothing has piqued my interest. I’m quite particular about the cars I drive. They are after all a depreciating asset, and sadly all too often these days, are only built to last out the warranty term. With a couple of exceptions, I nearly always end up buying pre-owned, I'm not yet convinced nor interested in purchasing an EV, I'm not a big fan of SUVs, and as for particular manufacturers, I've learnt to stay well clear of many European brands.
Bad experiences steered me towards Japanese cars around twenty years ago. I found pound for pound they offer the best value, and very little, if anything at all, ever went wrong with the ones I have owned.
2006 Subaru Forester XT (a rapid little toaster)
.jpg)
So why Japanese cars? Although their styling is highly subjective, which often leads to friends and colleagues consternation and diverse opinions, you cannot deny that many of their manufacturers have a strong, well-earned reputation for exceptional reliability, durability, and longevity. Some have also made fabulous drivers cars. And although not for everyone, I've really had some great experiences with both Honda and Subaru 😊
As well as cars built for the UK market I’ve also purchased a few JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) imports over the years, and although usually 5-10 years old, they have not been exposed to salty roads and have always been presented in a much better condition externally than any UK car of a similar age. Not only are they still a relatively rare site on UK roads they are almost always available in a far superior specification than anything we ever receive domestically. They have always reserved the best stuff for themselves.
My smiles per miles JDM 330BHP Subaru Forester STI
As I write I’ve been without a car for almost two years on and off and have relied on using our family run around. It’s not an ideal situation as often two sets of wheels is often required. Our other car is a 2023 Subaru XV and doubles as a canine runaround, so it's set up primarily as transport for our dogs. Being a jacked up Impreza this little crossover is a great utility vehicle and perfectly sized for our rural road network. Unfortunately it’s usually full of dog paraphernalia so its far from ideally suited for general transport duties.
Dog wheels. Our recently acquired gen 2 Subaru XV (Crosstrek)
Japanese car & Japanese Dog. Our Shiba Inu and my old track prepped Gen 1 2017 Subaru BRZ
Apart from a few track orientated vehicles I’ve always preferred an estate car (wagon/tourer) for general duties. They make great practical vehicles. Big enough to haul stuff around but still fun to pilot about, unlike most of the tall, unwieldy, and gargantuanly proportioned SUVs that seem to dominate the automotive landscape these days!
The last estate car I owned was a 2011 JDM imported Honda Accord K24 Type S wagon. It was never available in this spec in the UK and although it only came in FWD the suspension layout made for exceptionally good handling. The build quality was also very good. I only moved it on as I had an offer well over and above what I purchased it for, and that was after two years and 20k miles of use! Not something that normally occurs, unless its a classic with a UK spec car.
JDM Honda Accord K24 Type S Wagon
Before the Honda I had driven mainly Subaru’s, a brand I really have a soft spot for. Mainly because each and every one of the eight we have previously owned has propelled our family around safely and without drama for thousands of miles, wherever we've travelled, whatever the weather. One of my all time favourites was my EZ30 flat six engined Legacy. This looked after us for almost 10 years and around 100k miles, and not a single trip was made to the dealer other than for routine servicing over the whole period of ownership.
Loved my old Legacy BP4 Flat 6 tourer
Unfortunately, Subaru are not the automotive force they once were in the UK. Their well known halo car, the Impreza WRX/STI is long gone, and they have not offered a turbo model in the UK since 2017! A steady reduction to the range of vehicles on offer has meant sales have plummeted! This is mainly due to their continued use of mechanical AWD and by sticking with the boxer engine, with its high emissions, which EU law heavily penalises, has left it on the 'there are better options available' shelf! . As of writing, the UK range consists of just three cars: a mild hybrid Forester, a mild hybrid Crosstrek and an all-electric Solterra! The final phase of sales of the last all-petrol model, the Outback, took place in late 2025 and we won't be getting the gen seven model! The gen two BRZ also never came to these shores, and Legacy production ended worldwide in 2020!
Behind the curve as usual, Subaru UK then decided to replace all UK petrol models, not with better hybrid models, but with a range of EV's. Recently deciding to ditch R & D of their own EV tech, they have decided to utilise Toyota battery engineering. The upcoming E-Outback (Trailblazer), Uncharted, and the facelifted Solterra, are all sharing far more components with Toyota.
Why the recently US released Crosstrek is not coming here is a complete mystery. This uses a 2.5L Atkinson-cycle boxer engine paired with a 1.1 kWh battery for a combined 194BHP. It ditches Subaru's CVT in favour of Toyota's e-CVT, which incorporates two electric motors. This would sell here in far greater numbers than the current underpowered 2.0 model. As for the sixth generation Forester, the decision to only offer UK customers the measly 134BHP 2.0 mild hybrid model is doing the brand no favours at all.
Being a big fan of the brand it’s sad to slowly witness the likely demise of their presence in the UK in the very near future. They have been seen as a niche brand in the UK for a decade now, marketing their cars primarily as safe above all else, relying on a dwindling selection of mainly rurally located dealers.
The younger generations generally don’t aspire to own cars outright anymore, they aren’t interested in long term reliability or durability, they look at them as they would any white goods. They’re just another disposable item with the monthly PCP finance figure often being the primary factor of the purchase.
Since I sold the Honda I’ve test driven countless vehicles and rejected one after only two months of ownership. (I won’t be entertaining another BMW dealer showroom anytime soon😠) but nothing so far has ticked all the boxes. That is, until a few days ago!
Pre Digi-dash BMW 535i F11 Touring. Lovely car to drive but appalling dealer network experience!
As already mentioned, the XV hauls the dogs around and living rurally we do pile the miles on, so we tend to replace cars every 3-4 years. Our 2020 XV was currently nearing the 100k miles mark, so a few weeks ago we planned a trip to test drive a newer model. And this is when the strangest moment of serendipity occurred!
For the trip we figured there was already enough mileage on our XV, so we booked a 48hr rental car. Upon arriving at the Enterprise car rental garage I noticed a brand new Subaru Outback Touring in their car park. It was a 2025-plate car and therefore one of the very last gen six petrol boxer powered Outback’s registered in the UK. And as so few were ever sold, (150k+ sales in the US vs 4k in the UK!) I’d still never seen one in the flesh! They are such a rare sight in the UK you could be safe in assuming you might likely never ever see one!
Although I mentioned the Outback in passing to the rental staff, unfortunately it was not to be the car they had prepared for us! That was to be a Nissan Juke😬 Miraculously we never got to savour the Juke’s driving prowess because the gearstick fell off in the sales lady’s hand whilst she was showing me around the controls! I'm not making this up; the actual gearstick came off! So, it turned out that although the Outback was already booked out the following day, it was now the only replacement they could offer us at short notice. Result 😊
And so it was that we ended up taking what turned out to be a fantastic 48hr, 600-mile test drive! And that really should be time enough to determine whether a vehicle is worthy enough to warrant serious purchase consideration.
The gen six Subaru Outback was never on my initial ‘cars to test drive’ shortlist. Looking at images online, I felt it looked somewhat awkward looking, particularly from the rear. But my main reason for not pursuing further interest was because the UK only received the 2.5 naturally aspirated engined model and it looked somewhat underpowered on paper.
So, giving it the once over during handover the copious amounts of plastic cladding was something of a concern. Inside, it still had the DNA of earlier models, watered down somewhat, but still undeniably present. It's still a long way behind anything the Europeans offer, sticking with the minimalist approach, rather than with over excessive bling ornamentation. The seating position is good, and the leather is very nice. The large integrated tablet sized screen is a bit 'in your face' and the graphics laughably 'old school', but the Harmon Kardon sound system is a massive
improvement over Subaru systems of old. It comes with far too many nanny-state features within Subaru's 'Eyesight' system but thankfully you can at least turn the most intrusive
ones off. Annoyingly they default to 'active' again upon start up, which might get somewhat tiresome!
Its quick enough; I’m going to keep telling myself,😂 especially whilst on the move, but from a standstill the default throttle mapping makes it extremely lethargic. Sport mode does at least make it a touch more spritely so I can see this being used A LOT! The high speed ride is composed, especially for such a softly sprung vehicle with so much ground clearance. It's not the type of vehicle that was designed to be hustled around, more of a long distance tourer, with the added flexibility of turning into an amazingly proficient light off-roader should the tarmac run out!
It looks well-built, the seats are extremely comfy, the cockpit is covered in plenty of real leather, and it has a nice air of quality about it. Think Japanese Volvo. It is massive, so when parking it next to many European SUV's there is little difference in height. It is also unquestionably quirky and undoubtably rare over here, and I like that. It will also likely turn out to be one of the last pure boxer petrol models to be ever sold over here.
I really got on well with it, over the extended test drive so it pretty much convinced me to go look for one.
And so it came to be, that a completely out of the blue event has left me not only with a new set of wheels, but also back behind the wheel of a Subaru. And that has put a big smile on my face again😊
And seeing this is a scale modelling blog this is my Tamiya 1/24 scale model photo-shopped onto a backdrop image. (1).jpg)
I'm playing around, it's the best image I had of the real thing that looked like it could be a scale model😁
I very much doubt Tamiya will be tooling up an Outback model anytime soon, but I don't care, I've got the full fat version now😀 Time to get dirty! .jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment