This month, auto examiners across America will be choosing 50 cars that best represent the 50 United States of America. It’s a fun little exercise, designed to get us all thinking about the automotive culture where we live.
It took about 2 nanoseconds to come up with the quintessential car for Oregon. Of course, no one could take the diversity of our great state and come up with just one car that perfectly expresses every Oregonian and the State itself – but in the end, the choice was easy:
The quintessential Oregon car is a Subaru Outback.
Yes, it’s a stereotype, but Oregonians know that we see these cars every day, tricked out in distinctively Oregonian regalia. Up in Hood River, you’ll see them with a roof rack for the windsurfing board, and down in Bend they’ll have a snow board in the back and a “Ski Naked” bumper sticker. In Portland, it’s a faded Kerry/Edwards ’04 sticker backed up with a proudly displayed “Obama/Biden ’08” and a rainbow in the rear window.
Over in Eugene, you’ll see the special Salmon Recovery personalized license plate that reads “VEGGIE”, and in Klamath Falls it’s a Crater Lake plate that reads “HIKER.” The one constant is the car underneath.
So what makes the Outback such an Oregon icon? It’s not a political statement, since the Outback is not known as a particularly green car, although it does have three models that qualify for Partial Zero Emissions status. But neither is the Outback a defiant resource hog built to impress and intimidate. A Subaru isn’t a status symbol of thrift or extravagance – it’s not the cheapest car around, but it’s not expensive either. Really, a Subaru is just not a car that stands out in the manner of a Hummer or a Smart Car – the Outback just is what it is.
And that’s the real underlying reason for the car’s popularity with Oregonians. The Outback simply does what we need it to do.
In our climate, you can go from desert sand to ice and snow to heavy rains in an easy 3-hour drive. Oregonians want a car that will get them where they’re going, and every Outback comes standard with Subaru’s capable Symmetrical All Wheel Drive.
Oregonians tend to be active, outdoorsy people, and the Outback is big enough to make car camping easy, tough enough to carry our mountain bikes and kayaks, and comfortable enough to let us arrive at our destination ready to rock and roll. It doesn't matter if we're packing for a week in the Wallowas or a trip home from IKEA, the Outback can handle whatever we've got.
Most of all, the Outback gives us good value for our money. The brand new 2010 Outback starts at a reasonably thrifty $23,690 and for that you get a normally aspirated 2.5 Liter SOHC engine – good for 170 horsepower, and a 6-speed manual transmission. In the roughly 3500 pound Outback chassis, this means you’ve got good all-around power, and you get All-Wheel-Drive. Limited slip in the differentials and 4 wheel disc brakes round out the solid engineering on the Outback. All the good stuff is there – even a new Continuously Variable Transmission if you don’t want a stick.
At the high end, the top of the line Outback is just $31,690 for the 3.6-liter, 256 horsepower, Limited edition with automatic transmission. What’s even more amazing is that the environmentally friendly PZEV versions of the Outback are not the most expensive. Green Outbacks start at $23,990 and go up to $28,990 for the luxury Limited edition.
Inside the Outback, you get a nice passenger compartment. For under $32,000, you get almost every bell and whistle you’d expect in a luxury car costing twice that amount. Every 2010 Outback comes with air, cruise, CD (with aux jack), power everything, remote keyless fob, 4 wheel disc brakes, every electronic traction and stability control you can name, and a trip computer. That’s on the base model. From there, you can add leather, heated seats, moonroof, 6-disc CD changer, iPod support, Bluetooth hands-free phone support, GPS navigation, backup camera, and zone climate control – that’s a lot of car for $31,690!
The driving experience in the Outback is unremarkable, and that’s a good thing. This isn’t a sports car with wild acceleration and razor-sharp handling. Yet every Outback I’ve ever driven handles winter weather as easily as a freeway trip in July – they simply ignore snow and manage icy conditions with little difficulty. Rain is a laughing matter. You’ve heard it all before about Subarus and the Outback is no exception.
Fuel economy is on everyone’s mind this year, and Subaru just released their EPA figures for the 2010 Outback. Notably, the CVT gets better mileage than the stickshift starting this year, and it all looks pretty good. The basic 6-speed Outback gets 19 mpg city, 22 mpg combined, and 27 mpg on the highway. The CVT is a little better, at 22/29, with 24 mpg combined. The hot rod Outback 3.6-liter comes in at an impressive 18 mpg city and 25 mpg on the highway, and 20 mpg combined.
To put the cherry on the sundae, Subaru walks the outdoor lifestyle talk. The company puts great effort into sponsoring outdoor sporting events from bicycling to performance rally racing. My reliable inside source at Subaru says “We’ve always been active in the outdoor lifestyle. It's about reliability and versatility. The market right now is a little tough, but we tend to do better because if you have limited dollars, you want to get a car that can do more things for you.”
For those who consider green factors apart from the car itself, all Subaru products are manufactured in zero-landfill production plants and Subaru’s Indiana factory is the only U.S. automobile production plant to be designated a backyard wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.
So, with all that, is it any wonder that the Subaru Outback is my pick for Oregon?
source: examiner
