If you lived in Central Otago in the 1980s (I did), were of teenage years (I was) and really into cars (I still am obviously), you probably really liked Subarus.
That’s partly down to the brand’s AWD models being so popular in Central, where gravel, ice and snow were often part of just another day driving to the supermarket.
But it might also have been down to an evocative Subaru NZ television advertisement featuring the song Take the Long Home. It probably got a whole generation of young car-focused Kiwis into Supertramp, which can’t be a good thing; but it really was a rare case of a catchy tune fitting perfectly with a car - which I’m pretty sure would have been the now-iconic and extremely excellent second-generation Leone.
“Pretty sure”? Ah yes, my memory. In my mind, I remember the ad being filmed in Central Otago, which is why it made such an impact. Problem is, unlike Hunter’s Gold and Battletruck, it’s been lost to time. According to Subaru NZ, the ad was launched at Fieldays in 1982/3 and shown widely on TV at the time; but it no longer exists in company archives and my searches on the internet, including NZ film archives, have gone unrewarded. A long way to nowhere.
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That’s the bad news. The good news is that inconvenient facts can no longer interfere with my Subaru-centric rich personal history.
View all Subaru Outback models on DRIVEN
The point I’m getting to is that I recently spent some time in wintery Central Otago in a Subaru Outback, and it took me home in so many ways.
Apart from anything else, it was an ideal vehicle to highlight the dominance of Subaru AWDs in the Central psyche. It seemed like every second vehicle in some towns was a Subaru and at times I was parked up in a line of nothing but Pleiades grille badges. That doesn’t happen very often with particular brands in particular places; maybe Land Cruisers in Australian mining towns.
We were living high by Subaru standards: the top Outback Touring is quite low-key on the outside but loaded with everything from Nappa leather to Harman Kardon audio on the inside.
The Touring’s move from a 3.6-litre six to the standard (as in, shared with the rest of the range) 2.4-litre boxer four raised a few eyebrows at launch last year. It’s certainly made the Touring a little less special, but the vastly improved smoothness and refinement of the new Outback makes for a convincingly luxurious road-trip demeanour.
Ditto for the Subaru Lineartronic Transmission (aka CVT), the mention of which might not get the heart racing but the performance of which makes maximum use of the boxer engine’s torque characteristics.
For extra Outback fizz there’s the possibility of the turbocharged 2.4-litre four from the WRX making its way under the bonnet of the Touring later in the year; the 195kW/375Nm engine looks like a goer for NZ, although it’s not yet confirmed whether it’ll fill in for the previous boxer-six in this model or a new Outback of some kind, like the more off-roady Wilderness available overseas.
As it stands, the atmo Outback is still a brilliant car if you’re doing 1200km of winter road-tripping. It lopes along at low revs thanks to that SLT and we managed a tank-best of 6.9l/100km on our last few days, which betters the official 7.3l/100km figure.
The chassis is soft (pleases the passengers) but still beautifully controlled (pleases the driver) and Subaru’s AWD system works seamlessly. The Touring doesn’t have the X-Mode drive-setting of the lesser Outback X, but it’s still plenty capable off-tarmac, with 213mm of ground clearance.
The hardware is new of course, but there’s still plenty of nostalgia value in driving an Outback. The original model was arguably the first-ever crossover back in 1994 (that’s jargon for a jacked-up station wagon) and while it’s grown in size and sophistication over the years, this sixth-gen model still has clear links back to the classic original. Much like myself.
So there you go: what I did in my holidays. Like any good post-break get-together, there’s a slideshow below, so feel free to flick past real fast. And if you have any tangible information about Subaru TV ads from the early 1980s, drop me a line. Because I’ve published this story now, so you can’t ruin it.
SUBARU OUTBACK TOURING
ENGINE: 2.5-litre horizontally opposed petrol four
POWER: 138kW/245Nm
GEARBOX: Continuously variable automatic (SLT) with eight-step mode, AWD
O-100KM/H: 9.6 seconds
ECONOMY: 7.3l/100km
PRICE: $59,990
