Part 30: Subaru Baja


Let's say you're a small Japanese carmaker with a fiercely loyal and devoted cult following in the USA.  And let's also say you've begun to notice pickup truck sales in the US have really been on fire lately.  But there's a problem; you don't build any pickups.  Uh-oh!

So, you're pretty much left with three choices.  You can spend millions to design, engineer and build your own truck and hope your gamble pays off.  The problem with this strategy is pickup buyers are probably the most brand-loyal customers out there and getting them to switch is like pulling teeth.  Just look at the sales figures for the Nissan Titan and you'll see what I mean.

The second option is to badge-engineer someone else's truck and hope your customers don't notice the other manufacturer's name stamped on all the parts under the hood.  This seldom works, however, because once you pay off the manufacturer who built the truck, you're left with razor-thin profit margins.  Besides, customer's always seem to know that yours is a knockoff, and why should they buy the knockoff when they can go across the street and buy the original?  Anyone here remember the Mitsubishi Raider, Suzuki Equator, or the Isuzu Hombre or I-Series?  I thought not.

The third and least commonly chosen option is to adapt one of your existing products into something that sorta  resembles a truck but try to claim the compromises you were forced to make are "not a bug, but a feature!"  And that's what Subaru tried to do with the 2003-06 Baja.

To be fair, Subaru had previous form in this department.  Many will remember the 1978-87 Subaru BRAT for it's handy size, it's rear-facing jump seats in the back and it's alarming propensity to be devoured by rust by the time it was due for it's third oil change.  Subaru thought it could benefit from some rose-tinted nostalgia for the BRAT by taking a Sawzall to the roof of an Outback station wagon to fashion a quasi-pickup truck bed.  So essentially, it was an Outback without the back!  And because this was the early noughties, they couldn't resist gluing acres of Pontiac Aztek-style plastic cladding to the Baja's flanks.  Pretty, it was not.  But funky was "in" apparently, and it doesn't get any funkier than this!

The problem was, as a truck, the Baja was pretty useless.  The cargo bed was only 41.5 inches long with the tailgate up but you could open the tailgate and flip the optional bed extender to increase your cargo floor to 75 inches.  When the rear tailgate was flipped down, a hinged plinth for the rear number plate swung out so your plate could remain visible.  This was a clever idea borrowed from the original 1959 BMC Austin/Morris Mini and it later appeared on early Range Rovers in the 1970s.  Longer items could be further accommodated by the "Switchback", a 12 by 31 inch opening behind the folding rear seatback and below the rear window glass that served as a pass-through between the cargo bed and passenger compartment.  However, this small opening and the fact the rear window remained fixed severely limited the practicality of the Switchback feature.

Ugliness, uselessness, and lacklustre performance from the EJ25 engine meant the Baja didn't sell in anywhere near the numbers Subaru had hoped.  A turbocharged option was added in 2004 to address the performance deficit but that only added to the already inflated price tag.  Upon its release in 2003, The Baja's starting price was around $25,000.  That was $6,000 more than the Outback on which it was based.  If you just wanted a small truck, a base-model Ford Ranger could be yours for around $12,000 in 2003.  Subaru had projected Baja sales to be 24,000 units per year but they only sold around 30,000 units throughout it's entire four-year production run!  Even after production had ended, it took Subaru another two years to sell off the stockpile of leftover Bajas!  Weirdly, Subaru Bajas are now considered to be hot collectables today, especially the turbo models.

The name, of course, pays homage to the Baja 1000 off-road race which takes place on Mexico's Baja peninsula.  Funny thing is Subaru never sold the Baja in Mexico.  The Lafayette, Indiana built Baja was only ever offered for sale in the United States, Canada and, for reasons I can't explain, Chile.  But that doesn't necessarily mean you won't ever see a Subaru Baja down there.  Don't forget there is a huge market in Mexico and Central America for old, clapped-out, US-market shitboxes.  Thousands of deathtraps deemed to be unroadworthy in the USA get exported south of the border every year where they go on to lead second lives.  So it's entirely possible you may see an old, dilapidated looking Subaru Baja belching smoke as it rolls down the road somewhere on the Baja peninsula.

Quote from: giant_mtb on May 01, 2024, 08:41:09 PMMy brother's kids are like 4 and 6 at this point. Strollers are no longer a thing. But they're still both in car seats? Wtf.

Booster seats are pretty common up until 6 or so.

Quote from: Morris Minor on May 01, 2024, 02:07:12 PMGrand Highlander is good and I suppose has a bit more ground clearance for mounting the curb outside the daycare center but, in all other practical terms, is worse than a minivan. If you have little kids, row 2 & 3 seat pitch is the most important measure, closely followed by load height for getting strollers into the trunk well. Minivans win on these counts. Sliding doors are the cherry on the cake.

My brother's kids are like 4 and 6 at this point. Strollers are no longer a thing. But they're still both in car seats? Wtf.

FSD is for city dwellers and that's it.

It stands a better chance with regulators in the US than in the EU. The Europeans are regulating themselves out of existence.

Most people just chase the money. LOTS of money? sure, that too...

I think Musk realizes he cannot and will never be able to compete with Chinese EV auto manufacturers in China (which is the largest market in the world for EV) and elsewhere in the world the outlook for continued expansion of EV market share is not great. He has slashed pricing and profit per Tesla vehicle has significantly decreased but despite this, sales are decreasing.

So he has switched his focus to full self driving where Tesla has a significant lead over everyone else.  If his robotaxi comes to successful fruition it may be a brilliant move but I don't think it will, especially in a highly regulatory U.S. and Western Europe environment. It just takes one fatality or severe injury to shut the whole thing down.

At this point, GM or Ford should just buy Tesla's car division and Elon can focus on his FSD robotaxi bullshit because he clearly doesn't care about making physical cars anymore

The use of "giga" in front of everything Tesla just makes me think og family guy.