Here’s Why The Subaru Baja Was a Complete Disaster | HotCars

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Subaru is a rather interesting brand, always being the underdog within the major Japanese automakers, and focusing their appeal on niche markets. Today, Subaru has come a long way from their quirky past, and is now an iconic automaker thanks to a few things in particular. Among those things are go anywhere AWD capabilities, and legendary rally cars like the WRX that are renown for their performance. Pickup trucks, however, are not something Subaru is known for, but that didn’t stop them from trying to make their own, twice.

Starting with the BRAT in the ’70s, Subaru created a small car-based pickup truck for light duty work, and off-road fun. The BRAT was a moderate success and became remembered as one of the quirkiest little trucks ever sold in America, with famous owners like Ronald Reagan even using one as his ranch car. But the BRAT came to an end in the ’90s, and Subaru was without a truck in their lineup.

What would come to fill this gap was the Baja, a vehicle remembered by most as the brand’s biggest sales disaster, and an unloved failure in league with the Pontiac Aztek. Known mostly for its odd looks, the Baja was a perfect storm of faults and miss-steps that led to its failure.

The question remains then, what exactly made the Baja such a disaster for Subaru?

Enjoying successful growth in North America during the turn of the millennium, Subaru debuted a new concept at the 2000 LA Auto Show known as the ST-X concept. Built on the existing Subaru Outback platform, the ST-X stood for “Sport Truck Xperimental” and was Subaru’s attempt at bringing a new car based pickup truck back to the market – essentially a BRAT for the 21st century.

With bright yellow paint, and some strange looks, the ST-X was designed as a fun and exciting lifestyle vehicle. This excitement began with the engine, as Subaru broke from their turbocharged tradition and installed a supercharger on the venerable 4-cylinder boxer motor. It didn’t stop there either, packing several unique features like a “switchback” gate to extend the cargo bed through the interior. But, the ST-X’s greatest virtue was its basis on the existing Outback, combining the off-road capabilities, comfortable interior, and pleasant on-road handling of the car with the utility of an open bed pickup truck. The ST-X stood out as a striking concept and generated some excitement for the brand.

With a promising concept, Subaru began work on a production version, the new truck became known as the Baja, and debuted for sale in August of 2002. Remarkably, the Baja looked almost identical to the concept, retaining most of its unique points and design features, a rare phenomena when bringing a concept to production. But a cool concept is useless if

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By: Aaron Young
Title: Here’s Why The Subaru Baja Was a Complete Disaster | HotCars
Sourced From: www.hotcars.com/why-subaru-baja-complete-disaster/
Published Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2020 15:45:58 GMT

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