White 2005 Subaru Outback Xt Limited Wagon 4-door 2.5l Turbo 2.5 on 2040-cars

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How Subaru saved itself by marketing to the gay community

Almost everyone who's in the car community, and even people that aren't, have probably heard the stereotype that lesbians drive Subarus. What you may not realize is that stereotype was fostered by Subaru, and it helped make the company relevant again in the '90s. This is the story told by NPR's Planet Money podcast. Apparently, as the company was trying to figure out who was buying its cars, the marketing folks discovered that gay and lesbian people were a large segment – along with all those outdoorsy types. The discovery led to subtle advertising directed specifically at what we now refer to as the LGBT community, which in turn led to more sales to gay and lesbian consumers. There were other components to Subaru's sales strategy in the '90s, but this particular campaign was an important part and quite successful. Thanks to that success, today we still have Subaru around building reliable, all-wheel-drive transportation, as well as rally-inspired sport compacts. There are of course many more details, but we don't want to spoil them for you. For the whole story, you need to head over to the Planet Money site and listen in. Related Video: News Source: NPR / Planet MoneyImage Credit: Copyright 2016 Drew Phillips / AOL Marketing/Advertising Read This Subaru lgbt

2020 Subaru Forester adds a rear seat reminder, new pricing announced

The 2020 Subaru Forester has officially arrived with a few changes. To start, every Forester will be equipped with Subaru’s rear seat reminder as standard, following the larger 2020 Ascent which got that update earlier this year. Subaru is on the path to get the tech in all its cars, just like many other manufacturers have been doing for awhile now. ThereÂ’s a small revision to the standard EyeSight driver assistance tech for 2020. Now, every trim of Forester will be equipped with a Lane Centering function and a new Lane Departure Prevention function as standard. Previously, the standard equipment just included lane departure warning and lane-keeping assist.  Beyond those few tech add-ons, most things remain the same. A small increase of $200 bumps the price of entry up to $25,505. The destination charge was also increased by $35 to $1,010. All five trims from before are still available, including Premium ($28,405), Sport ($30,005), Limited ($32,105) and Touring ($35,605). The biggest trim-specific price increase comes at the Limited trim level, which went up $700 compared to the 2019 Forester Limited. You can read what we thought of the 2019 Forester in our first drive review of the redesigned model here. The 2020 Forester will be hitting dealers this fall.

2020 Subaru Legacy, Outback earn IIHS safety picks

The redesigned 2020 Subaru Legacy sedan and Outback wagon both earned kudos from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, but the news was not equally good for both models. The Legacy sedan walked away with the highest award, Top Safety Pick+. The Outback was one rung down, a Top Safety Pick. Sadly for the Outback, the previous, 2019 model had nabbed the TSP+ score. Why the difference in the Legacy and Outback? In a word: headlights. The IIHS structures their awards around several elements: crash tests, crash-avoidance systems, and headlights. Both Subarus aced their crash tests, earning Good results for the entire battery of tests (small and moderate front overlap on both sides, roof crush, side-impact, and head-restraints). Their standard EyeSight accident-avoidance automated emergency braking systems also performed well, successfully avoiding crashes at 12 and 25 mph, netting Superior ratings. (The pedestrian-detection function similarly earned a Superior rating, although pedestrian detection doesn't count toward the IIHS total score.) Headlights have to earn a Good rating in order for a car to qualify for TSP+; headlights deemed merely Acceptable limit a car to a maximum TSP award. Headlights that are Marginal or lower knock a car out of TSP contention. The Legacy's optional curve-adaptive headlights were deemed Good, while those same headlights in the Outback were only Acceptable, resulting in the different awards for the two models. For both cars, the base headlights also were Acceptable, meaning either model with the standard headlights would be a TSP (except that the IIHS grants a single model only its higher-level award).