Subaru Outback Sport review: it’s a looker

With the Outback Sport, the famously dowdy brand has finally made a car that’s not only fun and capable but attractive, too.

Hey, good looking: the new Subaru Outback Sport

As far as Unique Selling Points go, being ugly is a doozy. It hasn’t restricted the careers of some US presidents, many folk singers and even some actors, and nor has it seriously squeezed Subaru’s sales.

Still, continually coming up with cars that challenge a typical human’s sense of aesthetics is an unusual mission. Subaru’s Tribeca SUV was so disturbing to behold that it had to be fitted with warning stickers advising people not to look at it too soon after lunch, while various versions of the brand’s Impreza WRX (one of my favourite cars, ever) seemed to be wilfully woefully designed, with headlights stolen from deep-sea creatures.

Subaru has long made cars that are reliable, fun to drive and capable in all conditions, thanks to their clever all-wheel-drive systems. I have always loved its vehicles because they generally defy the trend for making tall, topsy SUVs.

Cars such as the Forester and this week’s discussion topic, the Outback, take a sleeker, station-wagon approach to providing plenty of loadspace and legroom for the adventure-loving family, along with an X-Mode system that can take you as far off-road as 99 per cent of people will ever go.

They are also very capable in slushy snow conditions, which might explain why every second car you see in New Zealand seems to be a Subaru, even though they can’t pronounce it (we say “Sue-baroo”, because we are refined and proper, while they say “Sue-bar-roo”, which sounds ridiculous).

The Subaru Outback Sport side-on

A station wagon’s lower centre of gravity, combined with excellent ride quality and lovely steering, make this Outback a pleasure to carve through corners, and this latest version also manages to look good while doing so. It’s so much more attractive than past Outbacks that I can only assume Subaru locked its own design team in the cupboard where they keep their oddly shaped toys and mystifying mood boards, and got some German freelancers in instead.

While the Autumn Green Metallic on our car sounds like a very grand way of saying “khaki paint”, it added a certain ruggedness, while the little bits of fluoro plastic here and there made the whole thing look a bit like one of those natty hiking shoes, the kind I’ve never bought – because walking up hills is for people who don’t know how to drive off-road – yet have always desired.

Subaru has also greatly improved the fit-out, feel and technology of its interiors, which have previously let the brand down, and this Outback gets a lovely 11.6-inch touchscreen in portrait layout, which looks great when running Apple CarPlay. Safety tech is very much in evidence, too, with a camera that monitors your face and flashes up a sign telling you to Keep Your Eyes on the Road whenever you turn to tell your passenger something. Reading this warning sign does, of course, seem a contradictory thing to do.

From the back

The problem with the Outback is that it is just slightly under-powered – with its 2.4-litre, four-cylinder boxer engine being asked to do a lot with just 138kW and 245Nm – and it is fitted with a Lineartronic continuously variable transmission (CVT) that makes me want to cry.

I generally hate all CVTs – with their moaning, droning and deathly dull approach to not so much changing gears as never really deciding on one – but this one particularly irritates me as it ruins what would otherwise be a perfectly good family car.

Drive it hard up a mountain pass and it sounds like a bee being tortured by a wasp, and sadly even attempting to use the shift paddles doesn’t greatly improve things. It seems like they asked Marvin the Paranoid Android to design the transmission; it might be clever, it might even improve fuel economy, but it sounds miserable. The Outback would be such a great car if it had a manual gearbox – but if it did, of course, no one in Australia would buy it.

Inside the cabin

And that would be a shame because, if you don’t need your car to rev excitingly as you increase speed, you would be very happy with this Subaru, and pleasantly thrilled with how much gear you get for your $45,190 (that’s the price for the Sport variant we tried; the entry level is $40,690). Things such as heated seats front and rear, with lurid green stitching, snazzy roof rails and sports pedals.

In the past, buying a Subaru meant having to explain to people that it’s what’s on the inside that counts when buying a car, and that choosing a Subaru meant you were the kind of morally superior person who didn’t care about looks, but happily that’s no longer necessary.

SUBARU OUTBACK SPORT

ENGINE: 2.4-litre turbocharged (138kW/245Nm). Average fuel 7.3 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Lineartronic CVT, all-wheel drive

PRICE: $45,190

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