I Designed A Retro XT Coupe Tribute Crossover For Real Subaru Fans Who Don’t Love The New Outback

Sales of the brand-new SUV-like Subaru Outback are down this year compared to last – by a lot. Many people and even other websites are claiming that it’s because the appearance of the latest Outback is, well, less than appealing. However, our own Brian Sylvestro wrote a piece countering that opinion, claiming that there are other factors at play to cause this sales drop.

Commenters to his story generally felt that Brian might be right, but they also were adamant that his reasoning didn’t take away from the fact that this new Outback is ugly as a mud fence. I think that “ugly” might be the wrong word here; the biggest issue for many is that this new Outback just ain’t an Outback. Honestly, it doesn’t even look like a Subaru.

Maybe focus groups told them to add an F-150 face to their once-pioneering crossover to increase sales. I have no idea, but I also kind of think this thing sucks.

What the Hell is going on in back? All those lumps and bumps and gold hexagon-framed backup lights? It looks like someone went nuts with those cheesy aftermarket off-roading accessories you see on SUVs that you simply know will never stray from the tarmac. I thought it was one of those awful AI “what the next whatever could look like” things, but this purports to be the actual car. Actually, I’ve seen it in the sheet metal (and lots of plastic, of course), so I know it’s real. The wheel arch trim in particular is kind of laughable.

It’s highly unattractive, but I don’t need a new Outback to be beautiful: I need it to be weird. I can make that happen.

Strange ‘Bru

If I were to ask you what Japanese car was the soulmate of the European brand Saab, what would you say? Many people would instantly say “Subaru,” but it seems like that brand is, consciously or not, trying to change that image.

Subaru started out as a company making very, very weird cars that we Autopians generally adore. The 360 minicar was sold here by future Yugo importer Malcolm Bricklin in the sixties until the obvious safety concerns over driving such a tiny vehicle on roads full of two-ton American barges ended its run in America.

That didn’t stop them. While most Japanese subcompacts of the time looked like scaled-down domestic cars, Subaru returned with some rather oddly shaped sedans, coupes, and wagons that were front-wheel drive years before Toyota and Datsun offered such a layout.

Soobie wasn’t done. They added a transfer case and rear driveline to create what was arguably the first crossover with their 4WD station wagon (no center differential, though, so if all-wheel drive is your criteria for “crossover,” then the AMC Eagle is the true first). Suddenly, car shoppers in Colorado didn’t have to buy a big Blazer to get up the mountain.

We can’t forget the time that Subaru decided to make an El Camino, which they dubbed the BRAT (Bi-Drive All Terrain, so it’s really BEEDRAT.) Naturally, such a vehicle would have been subject to the “Chicken Tax” that America put onto imported pickups, but Subaru sold theirs as a four-seater. Of course, two of the four passengers needed to sit outside in the bed, but that’s pretty creative thinking there.

If Subaru were to make a sports coupe, you would imagine it to be as unconventional as Saab’s Sonett. In reality, it made the Saab look almost like a Camry by comparison. The Subaru XT coupe was gloriously bizarre, looking a bit like a doorstop with pop-up headlights and a black glass canopy on top.

A full-width taillight fits in a band that runs the perimeter of the car, and the hidden door handles actually help the surprisingly good aero of the design.

The inside was even more insane, as I’ve written about before:

Thankfully, the gauge cluster lived up to the promise of the wild exterior. The “car” shape sat on a “road” formed by the graphic bar tachometer on one side and the mirror-image turbo boost gauge on the other. Also, if you raised the XT on its height-adjustable air suspension, that little graphic “car” in the center raised up as well.

The only way it could have gotten better is if the 4WD engagement button on top of the shifter instead fired laser-graphics out of the car shape on the screen. Use the Force, Luke!

Combine that with an asymmetric steering wheel, “satellite” switch pods, “Pasha” like upholstery, and window switches hidden in grooves on the door, and you’ve got an interior that looks like it was designed by someone who’d never seen a car interior before. It’s awesome.

How cool is this thing? Remember this ad and you’ll want one again.

That, my friends, is what Subaru is about. Or, rather, it should be about. It’s a car brand that made products so strange and foreign that The Boss and Blondie even used it to act as a polar opposite of a big Cadillac in their songs.

I’m sure the new Outback will find plenty of buyers, but to myself and many readers, this thing is an affront to the very soul of Soobie. I saw that there’s even a version of this new Outback called the “XT.” Can you think of something more sacrilegious than that? Have they no shame? Build this thing if you must, guys, but give us that remember the old Subaru something we can sink our teeth into. I’m talking about a rebodied Outback that pays tribute to the real XT; the retro-style 2026 Outback XT40, because it’s been four decades since we’ve had a Subaru this interesting.

Less Live Stream Era And More Live Aid Era

A few years back on this site, I translated the looks of the XT’s equally-strange successor, the Italdesign-penned SVX sport coupe, into an SUV crossover wagon:

This was a rather simple task, but applying the XT’s wedge styling details to a tall, boxy SUV proves a bit more challenging. Wow, after going through that Soobie history and seeing that SVX, I hate this new Outback even more.

Here’s the pencil tracing/scribble I started with over the existing car:

The first thing I did with the current Outback (in particular the Wilderness model) is strip off all the black plastic I’m-a-truck junk to get back to the basic shape, which is essentially a nondescript box. With a flat engine, there’s no excuse not to bring the hood line down a bit to mimic the old XT sports car and to give better visibility up front. Does it need pop-up lights? No, but I’d add them. Let’s add a WRX-style hood scoop, too. Think it looks strange? Good!

I’ve reduced the overwrought wheel arch trim to something similar. The ones on the current new Outback are ugly and actually are counterproductive since they make the relatively large wheels look like tiny thimbles! A recessed cut runs between the front lights and taillights along the side, just as on the 1985 car. Front door handles are flush, but the rear ones are incorporated into the C-pillars. Hey, look! A metal skid plate! That should make someone on staff happy and let him know that Subaru took his comments to heart. I’ve brought the approach angle way up, too.

Let’s animate the original 2026 car over the retro XT40. Under the skin, the XT40 would be exactly the same as the current new Outback since virtually nobody has complained about how it drives and performs.

In back, the all-black section over the cargo area copies the XT coupe; it’s raised in a manner similar to an old Land Rover Discovery. The low taillights blend into the side recesses of the car and copy the look of the old coupe- in fact, I photoshopped them off of an actual ’85 coupe. The two-part rear window is rather strange, as is the odd black trim below the rear quarter glass, but weird is what I want.

Again, an animation of the “old” new Outback and the “new” retro-looking Outback.

Obviously, we need the dashboard to be every bit as strange as the original XT. The asymmetric wheel is still there, and the gauge display has a number of configurations, including one replicating the 1985 dashboard. There’s a screen in front of the passenger side as well (which the driver can see) that can display things like a clock, inclinometers, and altitude gauges. There’s a “satellite” switch pod on the right of the steering column for wipers, front and rear defoggers, and cabin temp (either driver’s side or synced based on menu options).

On each door panel, below the vents are switches for seat heating or cooling, plus cabin temperature on the passenger’s side. Wow, no need for the shotgun passenger to stare at the center stack for ten minutes trying to figure out where the effing buttons are!

Also, note that the gear selector has a button on top just like the 1985 car, but on this new Outback, it engages “off-road” mode that raises the suspension, takes the transmission out of “sport” mode, turns on the inclinometers, and could even lock the differentials if you set it to do that in the menus. A gimmick? Of course! Just be happy that I didn’t put a flip-up “cyclops” lamp in the middle of the grille. Or maybe I should have?

Soobie-Do Or Soobie-Don’t?

I’ll be the first to admit that the XT40 is probably too strange for the average buyer; sadly, many of them might prefer the truck-styled new model, and that’s fine.

I can tell you this, though: if a Soobie is almost identical to a Honda or a Toyota and it costs about the same, I’d probably take one of those two top-tier brand cars anyway. If you’re just buying something with the expectation of it being a bland, reliable, and capable car, why not get one that you simply know will never, ever blow head gaskets, headlights, or whatever other maladies that Matt Hardigree’s Subaru had that made him buy a CR-V instead?

This is a brand with a long history of interesting cars; to see them follow the herd and go the way of something like Nissan seems like a dead end. We may never get another ST  or SVX, but the spirit can at least live on. Subarus should be weird, and built to stay that way.

Top graphic images: Subaru