Confession: until about five years ago, I didn’t know what to call the cars you are about to see. All I knew them as were “Subaru wagons”. They weren’t Leones or Loyales or whatever…they were just Subaru wagons. They were strange, they had an unfortunate exhaust note that sounded downright juvenile when the muffler came off, and the looks were love-it-or-hate-it…and I usually fell into the “hate it” category. As far as I was concerned, Subarus didn’t appear until the 1995 Legacy went on sale. Everything else was just some random car I wanted nothing to do with. Was I wrong? It’s taken a bit of time, but yeah, I was wrong. The earlier Subarus sold on their four-wheel drive capability and when tweaked and tuned properly, are extremely capable off-roaders. How did I learn this? By hanging around with a bunch of Subaru folk, one of which had a Leone wagon that was lifted on 31″ tires. I’m still not sold on the looks and the exhaust still sounds like a flatulent hippo, but at least I’d take one into the woods and romp on it, like these guys in Washington State do. That Leone coupe is pretty sweet, too:
The second video is at Walker Valley ORV park for sure. I broke a tail light at that rock in my Patrol. I see these guys around Mt Vernon, WA. all the time.