Who drives a pearlescent white Subaru Legacy with sports skirts and mighty alloy wheels?
A nearly new Legacy 2.0 Sport Tourer is around £22,000. Which means you could buy two year old Audi A6, or an equally nearly new Saab 9-3 estate. Both of which allow me to stereo-type you. You either work in a major IT/financial services company and like to fit in or you work in a major IT/financial services company but consider yourself a maverick.
The Subaru Impreza Sti driver is an equally straightforward fellow to deal with. He’s either a boy racer (older models) or a play boy (new shape).
I’m not being sexist – just generalising. Subaru is a rugged brand that appeals to men and has a history of selling Imprezas to Rally enthusiasts.
But the Legacy has had me stumped for a week. On the one hand is designed to compete with the Sabb 9-3 estate. It is a big estate, with stacks of room for pushchairs or flipcharts from the office. Although you may find yourself parking at jaunty angles to fit into some smaller parking bays as a result – I know I did.
It’s a brand that people don’t know so much about, unlike Audis or BMWs. Yet it can cruise on the motorway as quietly and has the gadgets, pretty illuminating dials and leather interior to compete with them some of the time. Even if some of the plastics seem more like they are from an economy brand like Kia or Hyundai.
On the other hand, it’s a bit larey. Even with a diesel engine. There is a sense in every gear that there is enough torque available to overtake anything and still press your head into the head rest with G-Force. Go down a gear and you can take your passenger’s heads off with the force.
The all wheel drive and big sports-tyres all encourage you to see how quickly you can take that long-slip road or B-road corner. And because the steering is neutral and the chassis is balanced, the answer is faster than is legal.
So I conclude that the Legacy is for the Impreza driver who has accidentally found himself to also be a Dad. And a bit of you has got to love the mind which responded to his lover’s nagging about needing something more practical and came home in a white pearlescent, fully alloy-wheeled Legacy Sports Tourer.
What’s the market like?
Subarus are reasonably priced when new - but are not cheap – and depreciation is managed to give owners a very steady ride.
A nearly new Legacy 2.0D Sports Tourer estate is around £22,000 with about 5,000 miles on the clock. That’s a handy £5,000 saving. They then drop very steadily until three year olds are £13,000, albeit with a surprising 57,000 miles on average.
So at any age the Legacy is a sensible buy that isn’t going to savage you in depreciation terms and that you can afford to put a fairly large number of miles on.
Summary
The alternative estate car. Is it for you though?