1995 Subaru Legacy LSi is More Mainstream than Ever

From the August 1994 issue of Car and Driver.

“The best way to write a road test is to sit down behind a typewriter in an empty room and just have some­body slide the name of the car under the door. If you drive the damned things, it just colors your judgment.”

Brock Yates was employing humor several years ago when he imparted that advice to this then-neophyte road-tester. But the idea seemed almost plausible on the way to the press introduction of the new Subaru Legacy in Vermont last month. It was the trip from hell.

First, bad weather fouled up all flights on the East Coast. Then the skies cleared, only to reveal that flights into Burlington’s “International” Airport were canceled because Larry, Darryl, and Darryl couldn’t figure out how to switch on the runway lights. Facing the prospect of a long drive in an uncomfortable rental car with sev­eral stranded strangers, a road test in absentia began to write itself:

Brand-spanking new for 1995, the Subaru Legacy now features standard dual airbags and praise-the-Lord non-­motorized seatbelts with adjustable shoul­der anchors. Increased body stiffness meets 1997 side-impact standards and endows the Legacy with super-duper ride and handling. The air conditioner is eco­-cool, and the engine has been miracu­lously tweaked to reduce pollutants and increase power. (Everyone knows that all new cars introduced these days include these elements.) With four-wheel drive, it sticks like glue, but it’s a Subaru, so it looks weird, it sounds like a Citroen Deux Chevaux, and it will only appeal to gra­nola babes and former hippies who live in the mountains. And so on—blah, blah, blah—for three more pages. Driving the car could only color this cynical opinion a darker shade of jaundice-yellow, right?

I survived the trip, and Thursday morn­ing dawned bright and cheerful at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. The halls were alive with the sound of a genuine Von Trapp family singalong posing the eternal question: How do you solve a prob­lem like Maria? Travel problems solved, the Subaru PR staff wisely spared us the long lecture detailing the obvious improvements listed above and turned us loose on a lot full of new Legacys.

We rubbed our eyes and blinked, incredulous to find that these cars do not look weird—not even around the C-pillars, where Subaru stylists have customarily run amok. The look is smooth and familiar, from the Accordish face to the gently wedgy profile and high rear deck. The Legend-wannabe chrome is gone, and a two-inch stretch in overall length—most of it added within the wheelbase—gives the car a well-proportioned, grownup look that won’t make the neighbors snicker.

Inside, there’s more of the same. The smoothly contoured dash and door panel surfaces are now covered with materials that look rich and expensive. The switches feel silky. The fan blows quietly. In short, the car feels more substantial than previ­ous Subaru sedans.

Running the risk of coloring our judg­ment even further, we set off on a test drive through the Green Mountains on undulat­ing, twisty, and slightly rutted two-lane roads. The Legacy’s rigid new structure proved itself over bumps, each of which was soaked up in a single THWUNK, with no ka-dunk-a-dunk-a-dunk aftershocks. On a badly rutted and washboard-like gravel road, this Subaru felt as solid and free of vibration and rattles as a Lexus. What’s more, the new strength and added safety comes in a larger car that weighs roughly 75 pounds less than last year’s model. (A hint to GM: raid the Subaru structure-engineering department.)

Suspension tweaking has increased the roll stiffness just slightly and dialed up the understeer a bit to excise a tail-twitchiness that plagued previous Legacies way out at the limits of adhesion. The result is an extremely drivable and tossable package that turns in crisply, hangs on tenaciously, and inspires high confidence in the driver. The variable-assist steering was wisely left unchanged, and it remains as communica­tive, linear, and perfectly weighted as ever.

The Citroen engine buzz we expected has been well muzzled. Some induction and exhaust system tweaks eliminated much of the noise at its source, and a new firewall made of foamed asphalt sandwiched between two layers of metal pre­vents what noise there is from reaching the cabin. What the driver now hears sounds almost like a “normal” in-line four (although the engine lacks the smoothness of a Honda or Toyota four).

Fortunately, a Panasonic stereo system packing 80 watts is available to drown out any noise that manages to enter the cabin—Sound of Music singalongs, for example. Its optional six-disc CD changer is the best factory unit we’ve tested. Why? It mounts under the passenger seat (no more unloading the trunk to swap discs), it allows random or preprogrammed play­back from all six discs, and it seemed impervious to road shock on all but the worst Paris-Dakar-style roads.

One noise that has been silenced for good is the whistle of a turbocharger. The turbo was canceled due to poor fuel economy, difficulty in meeting 1995 emissions regulations, and slow sales (Legacy Turbos accounted for only five percent of the line’s sales last year). The remaining SOHC, 16-valve 2.2-liter flat four now makes 135 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque (up from 130 hp and 137 pound-feet) thanks to low-friction roller-rocker arms and a sequential fuel-­injection system that squirts two mists of fuel into each cylinder.

A new DOHC 2.5-liter flat four is com­ing next year. Variable-valve timing may provide another boost in power in the year to come, but don’t look for another turbo or the SVX’s six any time soon. For now, the Legacy won’t win many drag races. Our loaded LSi model with four-wheel drive and an automatic required 10.3 sec­onds to achieve 60 mph and 17.7 seconds to cover the quarter-mile.

Of course, if you throw some mud, snow, or torrential rain onto the drag strip, the Legacy’s odds improve dramatically. Its two four-wheel-drive systems carry over unchanged. Manual-transmission cars get a viscous center differential, and automatics get a sophisticated computer­-controlled hydraulically actuated center diff. Even front-drive Legacies get the traction advantage of an optional state-of­-the-art dual-mode traction-control system that applies the brake first, then cuts engine power.

Prices have yet to be announced, but Subaru officials promise only modest hikes over 1994 pricing. If true, this newly de-quirked, mainstream front-drive Legacy will be priced and positioned competitively against its big-name four­-cylinder competition. All-wheel-drive model comes in at roughly the cost of a decent VTEC or V-6 package upgrade.

Competitive pricing or not, Subaru knows better than to squander precious resources mass-marketing its cars against Hondas and Toyotas—a lesson learned the hard way with the Impreza. This time around, the ad resources will be spent try­ing to expand sales within the traction niche, by extolling the year-round virtues of all-wheel drive, such as improved wet­road stability and better tracking on dry truck-worn asphalt.

Subaru has been the runaway sales leader in all-wheel-drive passenger cars for years—mostly in the northern tier and mountain states—and this new car will easily continue that legacy. And if a few Sun Belt flat-landers dare to color their judgment of Subaru with a test drive, they might be pleasantly surprised. We were.

Counterpoint

I like four-wheel-drive cars such as this Legacy LSi for the way they feel. It doesn’t matter to me if a two-wheel-­drive car is equipped with sophisticated electronic traction controls, because none can duplicate the feel of power spread out to four driven wheels. Some­times this feeling costs a lot in weight, friction, and price. In the case of this Legacy, it’s a 2.5-second lag behind a Mitsubishi Galant GS during a sprint to 60 mph, and 1 mpg poorer observed fuel economy, too. But that’s the only penalty you pay for the new Legacy, all else being equal. Or better. —Phil Berg

It stands alone as the only mid-size sedan with four-wheel drive and a price below $30,000, but this Legacy LSi makes respectable company for the class strongholds. Sure, it runs behind Galants and Altimas, and it rides harsher on beat-up Michigan highways than Camrys and Accords. But it sweats the details. The gap in the steering wheel perfectly frames major gauges. The “lockable” rear seatbelts arc the best for securing child seats. Biggest complaint: the weird dirndl-­tucked elbow-macaroni insets in the doors are padded everywhere but where my kneebone hits. —Mary Beth Lewis

What will the Subaru faithful think when they get their first dose of the Legacy? I like the BMW influence in the silhouette, the Mazda-like growl from the quieter unblown flat four, the Honda-like smoothness in the auto­matic transmission and its willingness to snap off downshifts. Those qualities all suit the nimble, vintage-Audi handling perfectly. My only concern is that the car is so submerged in this nice­ness. Instead of tying a tempting lure for Camry defectors, maybe all Subaru has done is scare off folks who liked the turbo’s whine and thrust. —Martin Padgett Jr.