It was parked outside Waitrose in Chichester and it stopped me in my tracks. A Subaru Tribeca. It was the first one I had seen… well, since I drove one when it was launched. It went on sale here for 18 months between 2006 and 2008 and just 746 were sold before Scooby canned it.
There’s an old adage in the car industry that the more mediocre the car, the more sumptuous the launch will be to camouflage the car’s shortcomings. And the Tribeca launch was lavish. Upper class Virgin flights to San Francisco, a four-night stay at the lush W Hotel right next to the Museum of Modern Art. There was an endless succession of fine restaurants and coffee shops. We drove deep into Sonoma wine country and cruised north to Hog Island for freshwater oysters. We had such a fine time, the Subaru faded into the background. It merely became a means of transport.
Why the Subaru Tribeca failed to make an impact
It wasn’t that the Tribeca was bad, it was just that everything else on the market was comprehensively better. It rode well, cornered tidily, was spacious, well appointed and marked a bold move into a new sector. But, dear God, it was ugly, and the combination of a shonky old-school five-speed autobox and thick-ankled 1925kg kerb weight meant the satiny smooth but peaky naturally-aspirated 2999cc flat six had to work very hard to make decent progress. Result? About 23mpg in normal driving. ‘A diesel?’ they said at the launch. ‘It’s not what the market wants…’
Tribeca = Subaru losing the plot
Seeing the mono-nostrilled Tribeca made me wonder, what would happen if Subaru disappeared from the UK? If it just faded away? Sure, loyal owners and WRC fans would lament its passing, but would the rest of us miss the current crop of Impreza, Legacy, Outback and Forester models? Would there be outrage, Daily Mail-style, at its disappearance? Probably not. But it might just happen without us noticing.
Small, quirky left-field marques that box well above their weight should always be revered and supported. To lose Subaru would be a travesty, but if previews of the less-than-scintillating future models are anything to go by, I get the feeling that Subaru is running the risk of losing that vital, engaging idiosyncrasy – if it’s not been lost already. And that could be fatal.
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