Subarus are the official car of Eugene. I can’t find the statistics, but there’s no doubt that it’s the best selling car in Lane County, and Oregon, for that matter. Subarus are the top selling vehicle (trucks included) in Washington, Colorado, Maine and Connecticut. They long took over the role that Volvo once had, and then some. But this is hardly a new phenomena here; Subies have been selling well here since the 70s. Which means there’s old ones that need to be sold off, like this 1992 Loyale.
My iphone flubbed this shot, but then you’re not missing much from this angle. The front end is…utilitarian.
Here’s the important shot. 1992 was near the end of the run for this generation Leone, which was sold as the GL here until about 1990. But when the new Legacy came out and the GL became the Loyale, presumably named for those theta preferred the boxy GL over the sleeker new Legacy. Subaru owners are loyal, although we did switch brands a while back.
It’s got 227k miles on it, and a stain on the front seat, but otherwise it looks pretty good. The 1.8L boxer four in these cars developed a rep for being very durable, and was immune to the incontinent head gasket maladies that affected so many of the later 2.5 L EJ-25 engines. This one probably has a good bit of life in it yet.
Presumably, the bike is not included. Doesn’t look like a Schwinn due to the lugs on the frame. One of you will know.
The body looks solid, except for these two surface rust spots. It was probably garaged; just leave it out over the winter and our magical healing rains will wash that right off.
Even with all those miles, this might well make a decent car for some typically under-employed Eugenian who wants to go cross-country skiing this winter (snow permitting). In fact, it was gone two days later…
Of course Subarus are the car of choice for Vermont winters as well and have been for a many years. However, the last Loyales of this vintage fell victim to the tinworm and disappeared from our roadscape long ago.
It’s too bad that the people driving those Subarus aren’t always the best drivers. I see plenty of them in ditches every winter and they’re the 4WD versions, usually manuals.
I see WAY more full sized SUV’s from downcountry with all season tires in the ditches than local Subies.
Oh wow. They seemed to rust particularly badly even when everything rusted fast.
I’ve always liked these old-school (early 80s to early 90s) Subaru 4wd/AWDs
This generation of Subaru (the ’85-’94 “boxy” Leone wagon, 3-door and sedan) actually had an ohc engine; although more reliable than the 2.5L gasket eaters, blown head gaskets on these aren’t unheard of. Neither are copious oil leaks.
The really durable engines were the ohv 1600cc EA71 and ohv 1800cc EA81, used in the last ’70s models and the ’80-’84 style cars (and older-style hatchbacks through ’89 and BRATs through ’87). Those engines are still being used by the hobby aircraft market. The early 2.2L engines from the first generations of Legacy are also known for durability.
That said, this is my idea of a 25-year car. Pay attention to oil, coolant and timing belt changes, keep the salt off, get in, and drive.
You’re right, and I’ve amended the text.
I like these wagons a lot and they are my favorite Subaru. They came out in 1985 near the end of that very boxy era of design that started with the Rabbit and ended with the failure of the GM corporate look of the mid eighties. What paragons of efficiency these were. It had over 70 cubic feet of cargo room which is larger than an Outback from 20 years later. The first Legacy was .6 cubic feet larger that the Loyale, but not surprisingly the inside got smaller as the outside got bigger over the years.
The Loyale also had the advantage of offering front drive versions. Without the extra complexity of the 4wd, there was better mpg and less to go wrong in old age. Many people buy the 4wd to match their image of themselves more than an actual need for it. Remember fwd was already supposed to give the added traction in inclement weather.
How quickly we forget that back before the Volkswagen Rabbit, FWD was considered “the” exotic answer for winter driving – and if you really wanted a car supposedly designed for winter you bought a Saab. A Subaru FWD was your second choice if you couldn’t afford the Saab.
Now that FWD is common as dirt they supposedly are no better in the snow than a first generation Mustang or Camaro with summer tyres, and you have to have AWD.
Nothing quite like these available today. Especially in the 5-speed version they were very enjoyable to drive. Large greenhouse, good compliant ride and handling, available 4WD, decent gas mileage and overall a very competent car. The wagons were especially popular here in R.I. My brother-in-law had an ’87 GL wagon and loved it. He got into a bad accident leaving his street and it was totaled. Another close friend of the family had an ’85 GL wagon, loaded, 5-speed. They ran that car into the ground for over 10 years and 300k miles and swore it was the best car ever. A replacement Legacy wagon didn’t fare quite as well with some engine problems early on. They didn’t like that car nearly as much as their ultra-reliable GL, and it soured their overall Subaru loyalty somewhat.
I generally liked the looks of the 80s Subies, but then almost anything would have been an improvement over a late 70s Sube.
My Aunt had an 87 sedan. The thing barely made it to 100K by 98, in spite of meticulous maintenance. The engine room leaked vast amounts of vital humor: (particularly oil from the head gasket), coolant and exhaust. The body rotted out, particularly the rear wheel arches. Even the mechanics at the Subie dealership were telling her “you NEED to get a new car”. Her next ride was a 98 Civic. The Honda dealer really really did not want to take the Sube in trade.
How did the 98 Civic do in the same environment? Rust and leak free when she sold it in 08. It’s still going, now in Iowa, with 222,000 miles on the clock as of the last oil change, according to CarFax.
Steve,
I bought my 97 Civic 6 years ago with 155K miles on it. I recently got rid of it, it had 283K miles on it. Still on the original engine, transmission, AND clutch. The A/C still worked pretty good and it got as much as 40 mpg on long trips. So why did I get rid of it? I REALLY ragged that poor car out and I didn’t want to put a set of new tires on a car that looked like a refugee from a pick-a-part. But mechanically, that car had another 30-40K miles in it.
This was the sweet spot for Subaru IMO. We had a ’92 Legacy wagon that came from Vermont, where as noted in another comment, Subaru is indeed the official car (although in our annual trip there this fall, we didn’t see as many of them…).
Leaks are what did it in…a tranny leak that went unfilled one too many times and it was off to the scrapyard, 185,000 miles. One of my wife’s co-workers got 400,000-some out of his.
Sad that the next two Subies were head gasket eating 2.5s…we’re in an Equinox now and love it.
These Leonie Subies were really good cars and gave Possum Bourne and Subaru their start in rallying Legacies came out in 89 at least thats the oldest Ive seen here and were heavier than the lightweight Leonie series I had a 93 with a carbed 1800 engine I sold it still going strong with 348,000 kms racked up, it eventually ate the transmission and was scrapped used trans that work are impossible to obtain here and a rebuild is several tines the value of the cars.
Had a family member ask me for advice on buying a similar car with high 100k miles for same asking price. Found a ’96 Tercel with 157k miles for $500.00 more and went with that car instead. It’s been a good car, needed a starter and brake pads ($100.00 in parts and an afternoon’s worth of work) a couple of months ago, not bad for almost 2 years and 30k miles.
When I sold Subarus in 1989, they had a lineup whose complexity far exceeded their sales volume. They sold Justys, XT coupes, Legacys(sedans and wagons), Loyales(sedans, wagons, and liftbacks), and a car called the DL hatchback, which was based on the 2nd generation Leone. 4WD or AWD were optional then, so all the cars were available with and without. They had eight body styles on five platforms at the time. Today, they have six body styles on two platforms, and one of them is shared with Toyota. I wonder what the difference in sales volume is from 25 years ago.
That level of complexity really only lasted a year – it was the first for the Legacy and the last for the old-style DL hatchback. I think the Loyale 3-door coupe didn’t last much longer either.
Speaking of complexity exceeding the norm, I had an ’88 GL-10 that had a funky option: shock absorbers that air lifted the chassis by 2 inches or so. There was a button on the dash that engaged an electric pump. This really came in handy when snow would scrape at normal lift levels. The car also had the turbo option with the AWD system.
I have had several Subies over the years, this one had an oddball failure and was the only time that I was left stranded: an aluminum engine bracket that held an idler pulley snapped. The steering went dead, and had to nurse it home (luckily we were close..overheating was the biggest threat). I had it repaired, and wrote to Subaru about covering the fix. Since it was not a maintenance or issue of negligence, they saw things my way and paid the bill in full.
Besides that, the car was reliable for the time I owned it.
From my observation Subaru has also supplanted Volvo here on the east coast. Many former Volvo owners now seem to own Subarus and the demographic of current Subie and old Volvo owners is eerily similar. Did Voivo simply price itself out of this market or did the Ford years poison the well?
Volvo is now owned by Geely, a Chinese company. They borrowed a lot of money from Goldman Sachs to fund the buyout of Volvo. Given the failure of Saab, the fate of Volvo is up in the air or may seem so to potential customers. The prices Volvo charges are about where they have always been, but resale value is dropping.
One of my older sisters had a wagon like this, but with automatic. It was very reliable but also an “accident magnet”, so she eventually traded it for an Accord.
But years later, when one of her daughters wrecked the Accord she went back to Subaru and is on her 3 Legacy….or Outback? She influenced 2 of our sisters, one has a turbo wagon that has been a real money pit while the other is on her 2nd Outback.
Where I come from, Chevy and Ford used to “own” the car market. Now, when I visit, it seems like every other car is a Subaru. They are also fairly popular here in Jacksonville, though I have no idea why they should be.
Here in a non-snow part of California, Subarus are very popular with the outdoor set and with the stereotypical older Volvo drivers (I’ve owned both a Forester Turbo and a 122S, though in different centuries). Anyway, although Subarus of the last few years have certainly gotten fancier, I see a surprising number of base model, manual transmission Imprezas and Foresters, as well as similarly spec’ed 3rd and 4th gen Legacies. So in this regard they are a spritual successor to the RWD Volvos … simple, distinctive, and practical with a rugged image. In a different category, one could also consider a V70R to be a larger, more mature WRX wagon …
Owned several but two in particular come to mind.
The first one was an 88 Loyale with the 1.8L that I bought for all of $425 from an auto auction that we used to call ‘The Red Light District’ because everything sold as-is there. If you were the high bidder of the vehicle that piqued your impulsive interests, then God’s speed. You owned that former impounded or abandoned vehicle along with anything else that may have fallen or poured out of it as it was leaving the auction block.
As the auctioneer there, I saw radiator hoses pop with a bang, cars catch on fire, and every single night there would be a long line of puddles on the floor where the cars went through and left behind some of their fluids. The upper area of the auction also had smoke hovering overhead and thankfully most of it was a good thirty feet higher than yours truly. There were many nights where I would go home with a headache due to all the noxious fumes these cars belched out. But hey, I was well paid and in my 20s. So I thought little of it.
I ended up fixing the water pump of that Subaru at a nearby Pep Boys, and used it as the official beer vehicle for the hashers group I exercised and drank with on Saturday afternoons. That wagon could haul an obscene amount of alcohol. We’re talking more than a four-door Lincoln Mark VI… and I should know because that’s the car we had for the runs before the Subie showed up.
I put it in the local Atlanta paper in the ‘Under $2000’ section. It didn’t last long. The guy who bought it didn’t even bother test driving it. He walked up to my door with three kids who looked like they had serious drug problems and asked, “Is this a good car?”, I said yes, and he paid me $2000 right there on the spot and drove it all the way back to Chattanooga.
The other Subaru of this ilk was an inop 91 Loyale sedan in red that I bought for all of $100 at a Carmax sale. I replaced the fuel pump for $10 thanks to a local junkyard and used it for around town driving. That one had the 1.6 Liter and it was an absolute boat anchor of an engine. Slow, coarse, and not terribly fuel efficient either when equipped with the automatic. I sold that for either $1500 or $1800 to a relatively large guy who had to do a ton of driving and didn’t have much cash. I hope it worked out for him.
Steven, what do you think of the price at $1500? I think the seller might have been a little more ambitious and gone for $2000.
The bicycle is American, cheap, and something from the 70’s. At best its a Columbia, more likely a Huffy, Murry, or (ugh!) Rollfast. Assuming that picture is recent, it’s worth maybe fifty bucks retail if in clean running condition.
I’ve run across a lot of these in my bicycle restoration business. I’ve passed on every one. When there are still Schwinn Varsitys available, you’d be a fool to bother with one of these. As a freebie . . . . . they function.
Which is the power of the engine and the maximum speed
The throttle body injected overhead cam 1.8 liter engine that all the late Loyales had in USA had 90hp. Top speed was fairly low. Earlier versions could have a turbo 1.8 with 115hp. So still slow but the basic front drive wagon was only 2400 pounds.
Ithaca NY and the surrounding areas is another hotbed of Subaru sales. These Loyales were EVERYWHERE up until the early 2000s when our prodigious road-salting finally rusted them to pieces. We knew some fellow Russian immigrants that owned several older (mid-80s) variants with the quad headlights, and I distinctly remember them having overheating issues consistently. Our own family stuck with Honda Civics and a ’77 Corolla through this time period before moving onto MK1 Mazda MPV vans.
Every time I go back to visit, it amazes me (coming from the Midwest) to see Ithacan traffic made up of what feels like 40% Prii, 40% subarus, and 20% Honda CRVs. I’ve become acclimated to Impalas, fullsize GM SUVs, and pickup trucks. Albeit Subaru being built right up the road from me in Lafayette, and their cars going more mainstream, I’m starting to see more of a presence even in the Midwest. I’m actually in the middle of price shopping for a new Outback myself. Very different from an old Loyale, for better and for worse I suppose!
I’ve had experience with a number of these–Mom’s best friend owned an ’86 DL sedan for a while, until it met its end in the mid 90’s in an accident. Plus a friend of mine came from a Subaru family–they had six, at least, all wagons. A mid 80’s one from the body style before this, two of these Loyales (though earlier when they were simply badged DL/GL), two 1st-gen Legacies, and a 1st-gen Outback. His grandparents would buy a new one every couple years, and when they did, the oldest one would pass down to my friend’s family, so they had a constant supply of 4-6 year old Subaru wagons. Pretty good deal. My friend ended up with both of the DLs at various points. Roomy and good on gas, though a little trouble-prone; high miles and my friend’s laxity about maintenance probably contributed. There is also a late 80’s turbo AWD wagon variant of one of these at a local service station; not sure if it runs or not, but the turbos were pretty rare IMO.
It does seem like Subaru has more market share now than ever. I have several friends who swear by them, and I’ve started wondering if one might be in our future as my wife has expressed desire for a larger vehicle with AWD since her job involves a lot of driving…