San Francisco Chronicle Article Panning The B9, but its pretty amusing...

[gfxdave99]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/23/MTGIEIDCD11.DTL

 

Somewhere, deep in the records room of Fuji Heavy Industries, the parent company of Subaru, there's probably a bunch of memos on the design of the B9 Tribeca, Subaru's first big foray into the world of sport utility vehicles. I don't think the Freedom of Information Act will spring these documents loose, no matter how much we spend on attorneys' fees (Ed. note: Hey, dummy, the act only applies to government), so, barring Fuji's imminent release of the records, here's our version of how the B9 came about.

The seasoned engineers who designed and refined and upgraded the amazingly successful Legacy/Outback line were in a meeting one morning and a senior Subaru bureaucrat walked in and said, "OK, I want to introduce Joe. Joe's family owns 30 percent of Fuji's stock, but don't let that sway you. Joe just got out of school, and he's got this great design he wants everyone to see. Says it's an SUV. So ... go to it, guys, get acquainted with Joe. Time for us to do an SUV. See you in a while. I'm going on vacation." And the rest was as predictable as a Dilbert cartoon.

Or, to be charitable, the car was designed by a firm that is known for marching off the well-trod path -- let's start with a blank sheet of paper, take no cues from anyone else who actually made an SUV that worked, and see what happens. Make the car, well, a bit outré. Perhaps they decided that if they were going to be part of the SUV craze, at least their SUV would be different.

It is.

The front, with its upside-down Alfa Romeo-like grille, planted in a bulbous nose somewhat resembling the submerged prow of a supertanker, looks as if it were grafted at the last minute onto something that was hijacked from a separate Subaru assembly line. The stern, with its kind of upswept tailgate, topped by a pronounced spoiler lip over the back window has shapes and drawn lines that have little artistic or design relationship with the front. The middle is trying to get these two ends of the car acquainted, without any particular success.

I'm sure it was a noble effort, the design of this beast. After all, look at the heritage: Over the past 15 years or so, the Subaru has become the Birkenstock or L.L. Bean (yes, there's a commercial marriage there) of cars. It has quietly carved out its sweet niche as the bad weather car, the one that behaves like a car and will go through a blizzard, thanks to the sophisticated all-wheel-drive system carried on all its models. The Outback, a slightly higher Legacy, is a marketer's dream -- remember all those ads with Crocodile Dundee (the actor, Paul Hogan). Subaru perfected the Legacy/Outback over the years, refining not only its technical attributes, but the creature comforts.

After the generation change in model year 2000, Outback interiors became more plush, then the smooth six-cylinder boxer engine was plunked into upscale versions that were approaching and, in some cases, exceeding the $30,000 price barrier. It's curious how Subaru prices have crept up and up and people will buy these cars regardless. In New England, where I make regular journeys at least once a year, Subarus have replaced Volvos as the ride de rigueur. In the winter, when you see the Imprezas and Outbacks gamboling down rural, snow-covered roads, the cars look like St. Bernard dogs playing tag. Throw storms at them and they love it.

Then along comes the B9, entering the Subaru showroom door and almost intimidating its teammates with its grandeur, its out-there design and, drumroll here, its price. These cars start at $30,695 for the stripper five-seater and cap out in the version we tested, a seven-seater with leather and the usual complement of electronic toys, at $39,148. Once you're done with tax and license, you're more than few clicks north of $40,000. There are a lot of SUVs in that territory -- Honda Pilot, Cadillac SRX and Infiniti FX35 are just a few (check the detailed categories at edmunds.com) -- and they cry out for comparison with the B9.

On the inside, the Tribeca's dashboard, which undulates toward and away from the driver in a car-wide wave, and the door and seat trim look a bit cheap, or plain. When I say cheap, I don't mean falling off the car, badly glued, poorly screwed-in cheap. Nearly every carmaker has learned how to fasten Part A to Part B by now. By cheap, I'm thinking that the B9 interior feels more like a $20,000 car than a nearly $40,000 car. It's not thoroughly objectionable. It's just that it could be better.

On a recent commuter carpool ride in from Berkeley, no one really actively disliked the car. Then again, no one raved.

"The seats are firm, but not objectionable," Peter Truskier, 54, said. "The dash feels a little crowded and curved around."

Peter Allen, 45, took a look at the typically complicated dashboard -- most 2006 model cars with various "luxury" packages can be accused of not being rock-solid simple -- and said, "Here's my engineering rant.

The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning controls -- you can't do them by touch. These are tasks you're supposed to be able to do while driving."

Asked about the B9's looks, Allen said, "I thought it was kind of odd-looking." And Truskier said, "I thought it was an X3 knockoff" -- an X3 is BMW's smaller SUV -- "and that is ugly."

That, too, is the consensus of a handful of Chronicle people who wandered past the B9 and dropped a few disparaging remarks about its looks as they passed my desk. Nonetheless, clearly this SUV will plow through mud and snow as well as its brethren in the Outback stable and just as clearly it will hold a lot of stuff -- 74.4 cubic feet, to be precise, when you fold down the second and third-row seats, compared with 66.2 cubic feet in the Outback with its rear seat folded.

So the question, though, is: Who is the intended audience of this contraption? Is the B9 really ugly? Is it a taste thing, kind of like understanding some aspect of modern art that others don't understand? Secretly, you are In The Know, one of the select few who get it, get the B9 Tribeca. Maybe it's like being part of the elite, who can say they not only live in Tribeca, a trendy district in lower New York, but they also drive a Tribeca. They get it.

Sorry, Subaru. It may be there, but I don't get it at all.

[HBZ]

I can top that, Robert Farago's review which also appeared in the Chronicle if I remember correctly. Choice quote:

Not to belabor the point, but who in their right mind would put a vagina on the nose of an SUV, and then accentuate the effect with wings and hood strakes AND make the shape stand proud of the grill? Yes, I know: the design reflects Fuji Heavy Industries’ past as an airplane manufacturer. But they don't make airplanes anymore, and the ones they DID make attacked Pearl Harbor. While we’re at it, the B9's rear resembles the face of a gigantic alien-- which is only fitting. Other than its side profile, the B9’s best viewing angle is high Earth orbit.

Robert Farago's reviews no longer appear in the Chronicle.

[NHLEG]

My friend actually bought one about a month or 2 ago . He was driving a Honda Accord, but needed something AWD/4WD because of the road going into his lake house in the winter. Well, we go skiing one day and he comments how he really likes my car (LGT wagon). I tell him to check out the LGT sedan so he could compare it to his Accord. I go into my dealership one day and my salesman comes up to me and says, "Thanks for sending Larry in last week to buy the Tribeca". I said, laughing, "Tribeca??? You gotta be kidding me!"