1997 Subaru Legacy Outback Limited Wagon 4-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

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Subaru boosting US capacity thanks to strong sales

It is very, very good to be Subaru right now. The company is rolling, with its global operating profits increasing 21 percent last quarter. While part of that is due to favorable currency conditions, the simple fact is that Subaru is selling a hell of a lot of cars, particularly in North America. The company's North American branch is expected to hit its sales goal of 600,000 units per year five years ahead of schedule, after moving 570,000 units in the recently completed fiscal year (remember, the Japanese fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31). Last quarter alone, Subaru NA saw a 12 percent increase in sales, significantly more than either the company's home market or the increasingly vital Chinese market, where sales declined by one and 14 percent, respectively. With such promising results, it's no surprise that Fuji Heavy Industries President Yasuyuki Yoshinaga announced plans to bump up production at the company's Indiana factory. Yoshinaga-san is pushing for annual capacity of 394,000 units by the end of calendar year 2016, Automotive News reports, adding that inventory levels in the US are too low. "If only we had more cars, we could be selling more," Yoshinaga told AN during a news conference. FHI's previous plans for the factory were much less aggressive. Originally, production would be expanded to 328,000 units by 2017, AN reports, with an eye towards a full 400,000 units per year by 2021. With 394,000 rolling out of the Lafayette, IN factory by next year, though, it's clear how keen Subaru is to take advantage of such strong demand. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Dave Umberger / Associated Press Earnings/Financials Subaru sales fuji heavy industries

Subaru EyeSight: Autoblog Technology of the Year finalist

Peering out of the top of the windshield of a growing number of Subaru models, looking like a pair of cyborg eyes on either side of the car's rearview mirror, are twin cameras that make up the visible portion of Subaru's high-tech EyeSight system. For 2015, the stereoscopic camera-based system is available on the Forester, Legacy, Impreza and Outback.
These cameras allow Subaru to equip its vehicles with such safety and convenience features as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and pre-collision braking that can slow the car automatically if an imminent accident is detected, even bringing the vehicle to a complete stop.
Subaru has offered EyeSight technology on its vehicles in the United States since the 2013 model year. Newly upgraded for 2015, EyeSight's smaller cameras now see in color and are capable of scanning further ahead and over a wider swath, which means an EyeSight-equipped car will now be able to respond more quickly. That means a higher chance of accident avoidance for 2015, something everyone on the road will surely appreciate.

2020 Subaru Outback Touring Quick Spin | Balance of power

Driving an Outback in Subaru-crazy Seattle is just about as incognito as one can get. You can further disappear into the Evergreen State background if your Outback is Autumn Green Metallic. And that’s how we blended in for a week in a town where the Outback has been the top-selling vehicle several years, and where Subarus constitute 12% of all vehicles sold (2.5 times the brandÂ’s market share nationwide). A few cars are outselling the Outback so far this year — but that's OK, because one of them is the Subaru Forester. Our disguise for a week was a 2020 Outback Touring, the top trim level, which starts at $38,355 including destination fee. For that sum, which is nearly $12,000 more than a base Outback, you get a quite-nice interior done up in warm Java Brown Nappa Leather, with sunroof, 18-inch black aluminum alloy wheels, satin-chrome side mirrors, body-color door handles, heated steering wheel, and driver-distraction mitigation system. ItÂ’s a handsome package, especially the 11.6-inch Starlink touchscreen built into a monolithic, smooth black glass center stack, though the HVAC controls in particular are a curious mix of analog and digital. And it all rides on a new, stiffer platform — making the Outback inwardly new from the ground up, even though it was outwardly designed to look pretty much like it always has. ItÂ’s a conservative, donÂ’t-mess-with-success design approach that Subaru also used on the new Forester. What you donÂ’t get, at least not on this Outback tester nor the one we drove a few months ago in our first-drive review, is a whole lot of power. Both cars were equipped with SubaruÂ’s base 2.5-liter boxer four-cylinder engine that doesnÂ’t reach its peak 182 horsepower until 5,800 rpm, with peak torque of 176 pound-feet at 4,400 rpm. Curb weight on the Touring is 3,772 pounds. Horsepower is up by a mere seven over last year, torque by two pound-feet. Here in Subaru city, IÂ’ve known Outback owners who praise their car's virtues but almost apologetically slip in a qualifier: A little more power wouldÂ’ve been nice. Subaru has a solution for that — the optional XT engine, a 2.4-liter turbocharged engine putting out a thatÂ’s-more-like-it 260 horsepower and 277 lb-ft of torque. The turbo four takes the place of the 3.6-liter flat-six that was offered through 2019. But the MSRPs for the XT trims are a big step up – $4,300 to go from Limited to Limited XT, $2,350 from Touring to Touring XT – to a total ranging from $35,905 to $40,705.