In July 2007, I was poised to graduate college (for the first time) and had just bid adieu to my long-running 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon. Only a month before, my Army Reservist father deployed to Kuwait. With a post-college world waiting to be explored, my dad told me to take the car that had replaced the Legacy as his cold weather wheels.
When I drove the ’90 Legacy off to college in 2003, Dad didn’t have a ready replacement for it. Thinking that a smaller Impreza wagon might be a handier size and a trifle thriftier—more of a spiritual successor to his long-departed ’83 Sentra—he watched the inventory at our local Subaru specialist garage for months before finally finding a suitable candidate: a 1997 Outback Sport.
Brochure image; virtually identical to my Impreza (save for my car’s steel wheels).
1997 was a transitionary model year for the Impreza. Subaru stylists freshened front-end styling that year with a more pronounced grille treatment that would remain through 2001. The interior, however, largely carried over from the model’s 1993 introduction.
Subaru’s SUV-pretender Outback trim level debuted in 1995. For the ’97 refresh, they added the “Sport” moniker to the Impreza Outback, further distinguishing it from the far more popular Legacy-derived model. Also that year, the automaker deemed the junior Outback worthy of its own TV ads. A younger nephew character joined established Subaru spokes-Aussie Paul Hogan to tout the smaller Impreza Outback to Gen X and Y.
Notwithstanding the car’s youth-oriented marketing, outdoor sports pretensions, and heavy-handed hood scoop, my 50-something father found it to be suitable. He bought the car despite its lack of a sunroof, a feature he had prized on nearly every car going back to his very first: a ’56 Volkswagen.
I borrowed my dad’s Impreza a few times on visits home from college. While I found the car to have its charms, it didn’t inspire much envy when I got back in my Legacy.
Admittedly, I was intrigued by the Impreza at the model’s 1993 debut. Even though my family didn’t own a Subaru in the early ’90s, I still thought of us as something of a Subaru household, owing to a 1978 4WD wagon that we had in my youngest years. At the time, boxy ’80s Subarus were ubiquitous in my central Pennsylvania hometown. The more contemporary Legacy was becoming increasingly common as well.
Yet despite the prevalence of the Pleiades emblem in my area, the Impreza didn’t sell well at first. In the “What to drive” era, the new Impreza was about as frequent a sight as the Isuzu Stylus. (We did have a well-established Isuzu dealer in town.) Before long, a woman in my neighborhood—who looked vaguely like Courteney Cox and for some reason I always thought was a young divorcée—acquired a new Impreza sedan, adding to the car’s mystique. Ms. Impreza lived on our development’s other cul-de-sac, and I only ever caught fleeting glimpses of her and her car.
At introduction, the new model impressed me as looking rather modern and mainstream for Subaru. Yet it still had enough styling quirks to remind you that, yes, it was a Subaru. The wagon variant naturally appealed to me as a hatchback aficionado. I could never quite decide whether or not I loved the car’s funky “sedan wearing a backpack” look, though. Within a couple years of launch, certain Imprezas sported a three-section grille with U-shaped trim surrounding the Subaru emblem. Whether intended or not, I saw that touch as an homage to the grill treatment on ’70s and early ’80s Subarus (like our old ’78). That detail endeared the nascent model to me even further.
Coincidence?
About a dozen years later, when I first drove my dad’s Impreza, the nameplate had become common on the road. My personal connection to Subaru was no longer merely a few fuzzy memories of my family’s old ’78 wagon. And compared with the ’90 Legacy I drove daily, Dad’s newer Impreza didn’t feel like a clear winner.
Not my car, but nearly identical (Credit: Flickr user Hunter Clary).
Having the same 2.2-liter H4 and a few hundred pounds less to haul, the Impreza was quicker than the Legacy. It also seemed coarser and noisier. Handling was secure and responsive—even fun. But the stout Impreza did not have the light, tossable feel that I found so entertaining in my old ’91 Protegé. Moreover, this ’97 Outback felt somewhat “de-contented”, not only relative to my ’90 Legacy, but also earlier Imprezas. Little niceties, like the shift indicator between the speedometer and tachometer, had been removed. Cruise control was absent. Interior plastics felt a grade cheaper than those on the Legacy; the carpeting was noticeably downmarket. And Subaru designers not only covered the seats and door inserts in a rough material that was unpleasant to touch, they emblazoned it with a bizarre acid trip pattern that was downright distracting to boot.
What were they thinking? (Credit: Flickr user RSImpulse).
The Impreza may have been a bit of a comedown from the Legacy. Nevertheless, I began driving it with the same “anytime, anywhere” ethos that put so many miles on its predecessor. In August 2007 with my bachelor’s degree in hand, I motored halfway across the country to visit my older brothers and look for professional work. I didn’t really care where, so long as it was far from home. I spent months searching, sending résumés, and interviewing for positions in such disparate locations as Dallas and Madison. With no success, I headed back to the Mid-Atlantic to focus my search on a more concentrated (and familiar) area. Ultimately, I decided to return to school as a hedge against a rapidly deteriorating job market. Shortly thereafter, I found my first post-college job near Philadelphia.
The realities of working full time while pursuing a second degree tamed my rampant wanderlust. My Impreza Outback served me faithfully, though it missed the endless miles of carefree adventure I shared with the Legacy. Instead, it shuttled me between work, campus, and the depressing apartment I could afford on my entry-level salary.
Like the Legacy, the Impreza surely would have continued its march to 200K and beyond. But it met an untimely end at the hands of a sibling, just as our first Legacy had years earlier. One morning in the early fall of 2008 while I was visiting my hometown, my younger sister borrowed the Impreza and was soon involved in a head-on collision. She emerged unscathed; the car was less fortunate.
Once again, I was in a hurry to find a replacement vehicle—for the second year in a row. This time, however, I lacked the high spirits and optimism I had at commencement. The search would take me into previously uncharted territory: Toyota.
Imprezzas come in many flavours from gutless shopping cart up to gravel express hotrod, the right one is fun to drive I went after a gravel express at auction but missed out that was a rocket pure WRX jacked up on knobby tyres and factory original, my 93 Legacy wagon was nice enough to drive but gutless and hungry on fuel.
I feel like Subaru missed the boat with the Outback Sport, though to be fair they did seem to sell a lot. The Legacy-based Outback got bigger tires and wheels and more ground clearance, which helped in deep snow and off pavement. The Sport got the questionable two tone paint and trim gewgaws like the scoop, but no functional improvements. Nowadays of course the Wilderness versions of the Outback and Forester have even more ground clearance than the standard versions, and the Impreza is targeted more as a price leader or WRX performance variant. Though there is again a 2.5 liter non-turbo RS version sold in the US, just like the first generation.
When we bought our 1998 in Canada, As I remember it had larger wheels than the Impreza (14″ vs 13″} and the 2.2 liter engine instead of 1.8 liter.
The 2.5 makes all the difference in the current Impreza and Crosstrek, in the Crosstrek it comes in the Sport and Limited trims, while the 2.0 (I think it’s a 2.0) comes in the base and Premium trims. In the Impreza the 2.5 is only in the top trim but again makes the car far more lively.
I remember back when I had my Saab 9-2X Aero, I definitely wanted the turbo WRX engine it came with and was happy with it, but I did get to sample a regular 9.2X that had the 2.5 liter and it was far better than I imagined it would be, off the line it was much torquier than the turbo and overall very pleasant.
i find it interesting that they never offered the outback sport outside north america.. as it would have likely competed well with the first generation of ‘soft roaders like the RAV4 and honda CRV that were popular in europe, the legacy based outback itself was always a bit rarer.. though it also had its contemporaries liek the volvo XC70 and audi allroad
If only manufactures hadnt basically dropped all of the above models in favor of insipid crossovers, and bloated but worse in every way suvs
My mother bought an Impreza Sport similar to this – I can’t remember the precise year, but she was drawn to the youthful styling, the racy hood scoop, and the Sport logos. I didn’t drive that car much, but I recall not being terribly impressed (imprezzed?)… it seemed to do everything OK, but nothing particularly well. I recall the interior being exceptionally plasticky .
At around the same time, I had a friend who had a base-model 2-door Impreza, and I actually liked that car better. The plasticky interior and hard fabrics, and lack of refinement were acceptable in a cheap car, but in my opinion didn’t translate particularly well to the Impreza Sport.
Still, it stinks that your car met its untimely demise at the hands of a sibling, again.
Oh, and now I’m recalling those years of shuttling between work, campus, and the depressing apartment that I endured as well. In those years, driving was a huge escape from other realities.
That part about travelling all over in a deteriorating job market sounds pretty familiar to me. After a few years of job seekers having the upper hand, it feels like the pendulum is swinging back to a more difficult job market
I kind of forgot about the little Outback. A tidy enough looking little car. There are scads of the big one around me.
In 1999 we bought a leftover red 1998 and drove it for over 17 years. It was a replacement for our dearly loved 1985 Honda Civic Wagon. The Subaru was a 5-speed which also meant that the center differential was a simple viscous coupling. It was a nimble car with good visibility and lots of fun in deep snow (low speed 4 wheel drifts). For the first 10 years there was only routine maintenance. Nothing broke. The main problem with ours was that it seemed to attract falling tree branches. Just after we got it a large branch fell on it and did lots of minor damage. Before we got it fixed, another branch landed on it. Two branches for the price of one. The repair required removing the windshield and back window. The problem was that they were not properly reinstalled, so after 10 years we started to get rust around them, to the extent that the roof started leaking above the windshield.
I agree that the interior was uninspired, but it lasted well. The frameless windows started out with wind noise and it only got worse over time. I don’t understand having them if it is not a hardtop.
I certainly could have done without the non-functional hood scoop and vents. A bit too “boy-racer”.
My wife drove a white ’99 Impreza Sport identical to your brochure photo, which our local dealer in NJ also had as a poster in their showroom. I had AR wheels with a beefy set of tires installed. The car ran, handled, and proved itself to be a reliable and sturdy vehicle for 13 years, and the day we sold it was needless to say, unsettling.
Great article and trip down memory lane.
The ‘97 Outback Sport with the 2.2 and the 5 speed manual is the closest thing I’ve owned to a canyon carver. I’ve many fond memories of driving up to hike or ski and pushing it through the curves, though not so much when going uphill when I took along three kids and their gear.
It’s now my son’s car. I moved on to a ‘97 Legacy Outback, and am still driving a ‘07 Outback with the H3.0. There’s more power but not that golf cart handling of the Sport. I thought I’d go back to an Impreza but my old knees have a hard time getting out of the low seats, but if my friend George ever gives up his 2005 Saab 9-2x that he has babied, he says I’m the first in line.