Not trying to stir up another anti-pickup hornet’s nest, but when I saw these next to each other in front of Harbor Freight, I couldn’t resist. Especially since the Subaru Baja has been butched-up some. And whe the owner came out, he told me a bit about his further plans for it, as in a six cylinder engine.
This Baja is a work in progress, and the owner is a hard core Baja freak. This one is going to be getting the H6 engine from an Outback, as well as a transmission from a non-US Subaru with the reduction gear for serious off-roading. Which is what he has in mind, as in a major cross-continental trip in Australia. Seems like an Outback would somehow be more name-appropriate, but…
I forgot some of the details, but it was something to do with lots of transmissions, the kind with the low-low gear. Was he bringing back several hundred from Australia so as to use them to build more of these super-Bajas? Something like that. Let’s just say he’s really into these.
It’s nice to know these Bajas are loved by some folks, as they were a sales disappointment when they were new. Will Stopford did a post on the Baja here.
I rather like it. But then you know how I have a thing for the oddball underdogs of the car world, especially if they have a high utility value. The Baja has all those bases covered.
Always felt the only failing of these was the bed was too short to be practical for anything. You couldn’t even carry a small motocross bike in the bed with the tailgate down. One of my Triumph riding buddies has one, absolutely loved it. Was shocked to discover he’d traded it in over the past couple of years.
The case for the Baja wasn’t helped by the fact that it cost $1000 more than a similarly-equipped Outback.
For what he’s planning to do, this is a good platform to start from. A coworker had a Baja and loved it until she tried to haul several bricks of blow-in insulation and discovered the bed issue that Syke mentioned.
For any type of regular use, I’ll take that Dodge all day.
It’s not a very practicle car and it’s not a very useful truck.
For some reason this seems to be one of those vehicles that you rarely see, then the day you do…you see 2 or 3.
I do agree that these were ambitiously priced considering the usefulness of the bed. It is almost too bad Subaru didn’t try to do an Odyssey into Ridgeline with their Tribeka. Though considering how well that van did, it may be just as well.
As with the concurrent GMC Envoy XUV and much earlier Studebaker Wagonaire, The Baja was ultimately an answer to a question (or problem or issue) that not enough people were asking.
I think I’m with the majority so far and would pass on it as a truck. With the cage/rack on it that this one has, it seems to lose some of its utility vs just a regular Outback with a roof rack.
The one thing the Baja has that would improve the Outback as a hauler is a tailgate that folds down. If the glass part could then fold up (as the whole hatch does currently) or even better if it could descend into the tailgate like a 4Runner or some older wagons then the Outback would be even more useful. Otherwise there really isn’t much one can do with this that the OB can’t do and in some instances less (such as sleep in it).
Now it it were a 2door with a resulting longbed, then…
” Now it it were a 2door with a resulting longbed, then…”
That’s the crux of it though; nobody buys a small(ish) pickup to haul passengers.
Now it it were a 2door with a resulting longbed, then…
…It would be a reboot of the El Camino/Ranchero/Ute 🙂
They could call it the Dingo. Just don’t leave the baby near it.
Or Brumby, as the Brat was called here.
Nah, you couldn’t call it a Dingo. That’s the name of a highly successful Aussie brand of mini-diggers, (like tiny tractors for confined spots). You could call them baby diggers…or not.
In fact, it’s an everyday word. I say this in case you’re ver here so that if you hear a local builder or renovator saying that that pipe will “need a dingo”, don’t picture a slavering wild beast on a chain pawing furiously at the spot.
Btw, you wouldn’t call this visually challenging machine a dingo anyway, as the animal is remarkably beautiful up close. Ask me how I know!
Wow, those Dingos are cool! I thought you were talking about what we know as a Bobcat but the Dingo is a whole ‘nother size smaller. We used a tracked mini digger last week to pull up a sidewalk and dig window wells (sort of in the background of the Cherokee ModernArt Car piece but a Dingo variant may have worked too at lower cost and more maneuverability.
Subaru really blew it with the Baja. If they had went the extra mile and utilized a midgate (a la Chevy Avalanche), it might have given it the carrying capacity it lacked with the shorty pickup bed. The Avalanche also had a hard plastic, segmented, stowable bed cover which would have solved the problem of cargo exposed to the elements.
The only things I didn’t like about the Avalanche were it was huge and got miserable fuel mileage. A midgate Baja would have fixed those issues. The Explorer-based Ford SporTrac had the same problem as the Baja but at least the rear window on those could be lowered and the pickup bed was a bit larger and more useful.
OTOH, with the already stiff markup, maybe it would have taken the Baja’s price even further north and had even fewer sales. Still, it was an opportunity lost. Now, with the Avalanche, Baja, and SporTrac all history, there’s still room for a smallish, midgate vehicle.
It goes without saying that the Baja, along with the Avalanche and the Sport Trac, were resounding market failures. The same could be said of the Ridgeline- looking at the sales numbers, it’s a mystery why Honda keeps it around.
Well, the Baja was certainly a failure. The Sport Trac wasn’t a hit but it did quite a bit better.
And the Avalanche? The first generation actually sold quite well, well enough to warrant a second generation model. If the initial Avalanche had been a failure, I doubt there would have been a follow-up version. GM is normally not the least bit hesitant in pulling the plug on vehicles that don’t sell.
Small car and a tiny ute all rolled into one, so your shopping gets wet when it rains and large purchases have to be delivered, should have been a two door.
Sure looks neat and I am glad these have some followers. I do not have the money to replace Head Gaskets and I rather have something more practical so that is why I did not buy one of these last year.
A sedan with a missing trunk lid.
It would be a quirky decision to float that to Oz for an outback jaunt, given the cost and LHD, (making it unsaleable at the end). Especially as Subies are thick on the ground here; I saw an H6 advertised just the other day in good condition for $800, with blown head gasket, not uncommon.
There’s a mob in Queensland, SubaruGears, who make the crownwheel and pinion jump sides in Subie manual gearboxes, meaning that you can then fit them to your VW, which will then ofcourse have 5 or 6 speeds and likely a Subaru engine too. I think they export worldwide, and you’d kinda suspect they had a monopoly on Sub gearboxes here.
But best of luck to this Baja fan. You’d have to be a little eccentric to love a them, no doubt. It’s like a good idea that was only half done when a long lunch was called.
And they came back after and finished it.
The Baja suffers from lack of utility because the bed is only slightly less useless than the on eon a Daihatsu Hijet crew cab. Anything small enough to fit would probably go inside a normal station wagon too.
The compact pickup based crew cab like a Nissan Frontier or Toyota Tacoma is much more usable since they have a 5-6′ bed that holds a cuple of dirt bikes or other useful load.
I work with a Subaru enthusiast (actually work with several Subaru enthusiasts, one actually owns a tuning shop) and when he isn’t driving his WRXes (one from 2017, the other from 2005ish) he drives a Subaru Baja. I think it is pretty interesting. He did point out that it’s great for weekend getaways but the bed is very limited, which would make a short-bed Ranger or Tacoma massive.
Speaking of Subarus, I took my wife’s ’16 Outback to work once shortly after she got it just to see what it was about (pretty nice, but I still like my Mopars). Everybody was like, “dude, where’s your Chrysler?”. When they learned it was my wife’s car, they were crestfallen that I wasn’t joining the Subie club.
I think the Outback is more subdued compared to WRXes, Imprezas and BRZs though. Turns out I was right: I was told by one of the enthusiasts that senior citizens buy the Outback if they want a Subaru. I told that to my wife, lol.