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Like I said, I'm sure I'm not the only one which doesn't prove any rule.:)
more than one doesn't mean anything. he didn't say "you're the only one", just that most people don't know the intricacies of subaru's and can distinguish amongst minor variations...you can, but most can not. even if two can or two hundred on this board for that matter, that still doesn't prove anything about hundreds of millions of people. if you don't understand his point or this thread, here's an exercise for you - go post pic's of a plain jane, stock, turbo legacy on about 10 other non-subaru boards and ask their oppinion on how unique and awesome it is, then you'll understand.

 

i'm an aerospace engineer and there's thousands like me, does that mean it's a "rule" or general trend, or pattern that most people in america can do differential equations, navier stokes flow analysis, fourier transforms, and laplace transforms? i don't think so.

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more than one doesn't mean anything. he didn't say "you're the only one", just that most people don't know the intricacies of subaru's and can distinguish amongst minor variations...you can, but most can not. even if two can or two hundred on this board for that matter, that still doesn't prove jack squat about hundreds of millions of people. if you don't understand his point or this thread, here's an exercise for you - go post pic's of a plain jane, stock, turbo legacy on about 10 other non-subaru boards and ask their oppinion on how unique and awesome it is, then you'll understand.

 

I'm glad we're on the same page Gary.

 

Now, i'm not saying I don't Love my Legacies. I've had a 96 LS for 5 years and now i just bought a 99 GT Limited. I don't love them for their looks (though i do love how the GT looks) i love them for how they drive, how safe i feel while driving, their reliability, and the fact that it's an underdog brand.

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more than one doesn't mean anything. he didn't say "you're the only one", just that most people don't know the intricacies of subaru's and can distinguish amongst minor variations...you can, but most can not. even if two can or two hundred on this board for that matter, that still doesn't prove anything about hundreds of millions of people. if you don't understand his point or this thread, here's an exercise for you - go post pic's of a plain jane, stock, turbo legacy on about 10 other non-subaru boards and ask their oppinion on how unique and awesome it is, then you'll understand.

 

i'm an aerospace engineer and there's thousands like me, does that mean it's a "rule" or general trend, or pattern that most people in america can do differential equations, navier stokes flow analysis, fourier transforms, and laplace transforms? i don't think so.

I didn't say he said I was the only one. He said "noone". I understand his point perfectly. I'm not sure how minor a hood scoop is on a Subaru but I'm sure a lot of people noticed it. These days it's common but it wasn't then. I think we're all on the same page. He just used the wrong word.

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Unfortunately, what a lot of people on here think as quirky or rare... is not.

 

Someone with lots of international automobile mechanical knowledge (not me), would be able to point out how most of the things we like think are rare... is used commonly by other car companies.

 

Ex: boxer engine. Ummm... used by Porsche in every 911 to begin with and lots of other cars, not to mention Honda in their motorcycles.

 

We love the cars and they are different, but they don't have to achieve some superior status of special :-\ . We know the formula that makes the Subaru we like, but they have and always will continue to change that formula over time. That's why we have old gen and new gen fans. Some wouldn't touch an EA and others are confused just looking at an EJ. Just like what you like. I'll be happy as long as Subaru keeps offering the turbo engine!

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Unfortunately, what a lot of people on here think as quirky or rare... is not.

 

Someone with lots of international automobile mechanical knowledge (not me), would be able to point out how most of the things we like think are rare... is used commonly by other car companies.

 

Ex: boxer engine. Ummm... used by Porsche in every 911 to begin with and lots of other cars, not to mention Honda in their motorcycles.

 

We love the cars and they are different, but they don't have to achieve some superior status of special :-\ . We know the formula that makes the Subaru we like, but they have and always will continue to change that formula over time. That's why we have old gen and new gen fans. Some wouldn't touch an EA and others are confused just looking at an EJ. Just like what you like. I'll be happy as long as Subaru keeps offering the turbo engine!

 

well stated

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true, few things are original, but he's just talking about being quirky and a little off beat. not many USE the boxer style engine, so that they do is a bit different...different, not new or original or "first", just different that they choose to.

 

for instance, someone has warn top hats before, like many decades ago when it was common. but that doesn't mean i wouldn't be considered quirky if i started wearing one today. i wouldn't be called "original" or "new", but quirky or goofy.

 

XT-Turbo's had a factory scoop. It was even functional ;)
DAM dave! nice call, way to represent.
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thank you. i DID want to put those things in my original entry, but didn't want to make it any longer than it already was.

 

however, pleanty of other cars have been offered in a wagon formation:

Focus: Sedan/wagon/hatch

Acord: Sedan/wagon

Camry: Sedan/Wagon

 

Key word here is "have been offered." Focus doesn't count, as I was limiting the discussion to Japanese cars and quite frankly Subaru/Toytota/Honda buyers aren't cross-shopping Focuses IMO. I think the Accord and Camry went through one, possibly two generations of offering wagons and they sold about twelve of them! With Subaru, it's almost hard to find a car which ISN'T a wagon. As always, quirk is in the eyes of the beholder.

 

Nathan

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You call that a scoop???:lol:

 

It looks more like a big vent. A functional vent.

You got it Gary, way to represent.:headbang:

good one. we wanted quirky huh, what's more quirky than a functional hood vent? sometimes it takes more than one try to "get it right". i actually like them better than impreza scoops, admitedly my own quirk. xt guru and while i like it on my OBS, sitting that high off an XT6 isn't my style.
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If you're judging 'quirky' based entirely on looks, then you're missing a HUGE part of the picture.

 

No, Subarus do not look all that quirky in reality.

 

Whether you like the looks or not, a Pontiac Aztek is quirky-looking. EXTREMELY quirky-looking. But if you drive it and start looking under the hood and looking under the chassis, you'll notice that it's the same old boring GM platform underneath. It's not really quirky, it only pretends it is by looking like it.

 

Subarus do indeed mostly look like everything else on the road. I, like others have said, notice Subarus because I'm not normal (obviously :lol: ) and because I like them. If I wasn't a Subaru guy, I wouldn't look at them twice.

 

But once I DROVE a Subaru, I began to appreciate their quirkiness.

 

Let's ditch the whole boxer and AWD argument. As Virrdog said, Porsche beat them to that, as did Alfa Romeo and Lancia. Sorry Subaru.

 

But here's what I like that makes Subarus quirky:

 

1) The frameless windows. No, it's not something that Subaru has exclusively, but it's something Subaru had stuck to adamantly for decades. Yeah, the window rattles a little bit if you shut the door when the window is down. Some people may not like that. But I know the window isn't going to shatter to pieces or fall off its regulator. So I don't have a problem with it. At the same time, the window rattle and small increase in NVH is something that I've gotten used to in all the Subarus I've driven. That makes it a characteristic that I immediately recognize whenever I drive or ride in a Subaru.

 

2) The rough idle. Subaru engines shake a tiny bit at idle. Always have. They doesn't shake the whole car into violent spasms, they just occasionally jerk really lightly from side to side. At the very least, it lets me know the engine is running. Again, it doesn't put me off. In fact, it's something that I again recognize whenever I get in a Subaru.

 

3) The parking light switch. I'm actually one of the lucky few who never fell for it, and learned what the switch was for before I could have. No, I never use mine either. It really, truly is pointless for the most part, especially today when most cars turn their headlights off anyway. But it was a Subaru trademark! It was something us die-hard Subaru guys knew about. I can understand the frustration if you are a first-time Subaru person and you aren't a car person who must know about every nook and cranny on your car. But I honestly do feel that if you really have to have everything in your life be that normal and predictable, then you really don't belong in a Subaru anyway.

 

4) The Hill-Holder. Now that is an actual Subaru exclusive. Thank God it's back on the Foresters at least. No, it's not for everybody, and yes, there is the small chance of failure (my Hill-Holder valve on my XT sprung a leak and left me without brakes as I was leaving my neighborhood one day), but it's not only convenient (you can sit on a hill with your foot completely off the brake, which would either make you roll back in a different car, or make you either roll forward (or backward if the hill's steep enough) in an automatic), it's a Subaru trademark. I don't believe it's a crutch, I can do just fine in a car without a Hill-Holder, as can most every other Subaru driver. It's just one more thing that made a Subaru, a Subaru :lol:

 

5) The sound. And I don't just mean a turbo Subaru with a loud exhaust. Even stock EA82s make their own distinctive noise that no other car makes. There is a sound unique to Subaru, and NO OTHER car can come close to matching it.

 

I could go on more, as there are other things that specifically make Subarus different amidst all the other cars out there.

 

All that said... I've seen the 08 Impreza, and I've driven the 08 Impreza. That quirk IS NOT THERE. Yes, it's a faster, nicer, and better-performing car. If you stuck a gun to my head and told me to say the 08 Impreza is a statistically inferior car to previous Subarus, I'd have to take the bullet. It IS a statistical improvement over the outgoing Impreza.

 

BUT IT JUST DOESN'T FEEL LIKE A SUBARU!

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4) The Hill-Holder. Now that is an actual Subaru exclusive. Thank God it's back on the Foresters at least. No, it's not for everybody, and yes, there is the small chance of failure (my Hill-Holder valve on my XT sprung a leak and left me without brakes as I was leaving my neighborhood one day), but it's not only convenient (you can sit on a hill with your foot completely off the brake, which would either make you roll back in a different car, or make you either roll forward (or backward if the hill's steep enough) in an automatic), it's a Subaru trademark. I don't believe it's a crutch, I can do just fine in a car without a Hill-Holder, as can most every other Subaru driver. It's just one more thing that made a Subaru, a Subaru :lol:

 

American companies had played around with Hill-Holder technology decades before Subaru, but like the (watercooled) boxer, Subaru really made it their own.

 

BTW, is the idle audible for everyone's cars? Mine idles silently at about 600 and I need to touch the shifter to know it's still running. I'm used to less-refined cars! :)

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If you're judging 'quirky' based entirely on looks, then you're missing a HUGE part of the picture.
he's not missing the picture, just making a statement about looks, nothing wrong with that discussion. he never said subaru's are only and exclusively quirky because of looks. he's only commenting on the "cosmetic quirkiness". man, everyone has to pick apart the point of the thread!
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he's not missing the picture, just making a statement about looks, nothing wrong with that discussion. he never said subaru's are only and exclusively quirky because of looks. he's only commenting on the "cosmetic quirkiness". man, everyone has to pick apart the point of the thread!

 

Most of everything he talked about in the original post had to do with looks. He was comparing the headlight styles of the GD Imprezas (you can't split up the GD Impreza into 'generations' based on the front-end design, they're all facelifts of the second-generation Impreza), he was saying the EA82s looked like any other 80's car, and he saw an 08 Impreza on the highway and called it quirky just by looking at it.

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Each Subaru I've been in has its own particular quirks. After driving one and driving other cars, I only want to drive Subaru's because of the quirks. I mean, hell, is easiness of maintenance a quirk? Starting with the EJ engine, doing work on your engine at home became an extremely easy task. Not so much with these horizontally mounted engines.

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You've gotta define quirky, because at the moment im reading it as...

 

Quirky:

multipla.jpg

 

Not Quirky:

 

52202059_full.jpg

 

Oops wait thats a Hoda Civic...

 

114.JPG

 

Ah Thats better!

Quirky isnt always better....some people want a car that looks like everyone elses.

 

Above all else i pray to god the '08 has the same sorta build quality and performance we like on our soobies. I also pray it accomplishes this whilst using just a little bit less gas than its predecessor.

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to clearify.....again.....

 

You'll have NO arguement from me about the guts of Subarus being quirky.

 

The window rattle, the parking switch, the rough idles, the light tick-tick-tick of a Subaru's engine passing by, are all things that make a subaru quirky to a subaru lover, and (not to sound cheesy about a car) those things are comforting to me...almost "homey" (not like "gangsta" homey - but home homey)

 

The point of my original post was to see Subarus from the eyes of someone on the highway driving a Camry or Explorer.

 

Look, we all know what makes a Subaru interesting and different. However, the average person driving down the road couldn't care less when they see a Legacy or Impreza; and THAT'S my point..........(unless they're looking at an XT(6), Brat, SVX, Baja, Tribeca)

 

 

If you WANT to get into submodels (IMO):

Gen 1 Outback Sport

Gen 1 Impreza RS

Gen 1 WRX STi

 

And honestly, those three were quirky and cool looking when they came out, but they're so common now that they've lost all quirk.

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