Many of you might be familiar with the Subaru 360 primarily from seeing and reading about it online or in print but honestly, have you ever met someone who bought one of these because they were looking for a daily driver? Someone had to buy them and drive them back in the days before they were “collectible” and one of those misguided people was me.
Because of the sale and rapid demise of my Renault 8 I returned home from University after my freshman year to no car. It was May, 1976. To be honest I really did not need a car. I was working at the same local bike shop where I had wrenched my way through high school and commuting to and from work by bike. Yet something in me must have been hankering for motorized transport as I somehow convinced my boss, Rocky, that he should buy an inexpensive car for me to use during what would turn out to be my last summer in Marion, Ohio.
Thanks to his misguided generosity I soon found myself shopping for practical used transportation that held out some possibility of retaining its value for three months or so. My primary research tool was the classified section of the local newspaper (The Marion Star, whose original founder and editor had been President Warren Harding!). I looked at but rejected a Volkswagen Thing and perhaps that got me thinking about the classic curved profile of its sibling the Beetle. Always one to zig when others zag I went with that shape but in the form of a 1969 Subaru 360. Really.
The story of the Subaru 360 being sold in the United States begins in 1945. Most citizens in post-World War II Japan, like those in Europe, could not afford conventional full size cars. Manufacturers responded in the immediate post war period by creating more models of microcars than had ever been seen before or since. While there are various definitions of what exactly constitutes a microcar all have comparatively small displacement engines. In Japan a combination of taxation policies and parking regulations eventually led to a class of cars that exist to this day, the Kei car. While Kei contemporary cars feature engines up to 660 cc, the maximum allowed displacement during the Subaru 360 era was, surprise, just under 360 cc.
Fuji Heavy Industries had formerly been an aircraft manufacturer but after WWII migrated toward ground-based transportation including scooters and eventually cars through its newly created automotive division, Subaru. The 360 was first manufactured in 1958. Production ended in 1971 after production of 392,000 cars which collectively had 784,000 rear-hinged “suicide” doors.
In the United States entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin, having recently sold his interest in a chain of hardware stores he had started, was looking for a new venture. He traveled to Japan to explore purchasing scooters from Fuji Heavy Industries but ended up instead entering into an agreement to be the exclusive importer of the Subaru 360 to the United States.
The diminutive rear engine Subaru, at just over 900 pounds and with a length of 118 inches, was small enough to drive right through existing US safety and emission loopholes though it would have done so slowly with its air-cooled two cycle engine producing only 25 hp.
To put the Subaru’s size into perspective the original Mini weighed over 400 pounds more and was slightly longer at 120 inches. Either car could park within the wheelbase of the current Chevy Suburban with inches to spare.
Like the Mini, the Subaru 360 seated four and was surprisingly roomy even in the back. As a passenger I would not want to sit back there for a long trip but, frankly, that would never be an issue as the woefully under powered car was not suitable for extended travel at highway speeds even in the era of 55 mph speed limits.
Bricklin and a partner formed Subaru of America to market the car to an unsuspecting public. Ten thousand Subaru 360’s were imported in 1968 and 1969 selling originally for $1,297. Bricklin’s ads called the car “Cheap and Ugly”.
In 1969 Consumer Reports deemed the car “Not Acceptable” as its safety testing showed that the little Kei would be knocked out in the first round of a fight by American cars averaging more than three times its weight. The 1970’s were well underway before the last of the 10,000 cars imported to the US would be sold. Fuji Heavy Industries would go on to take control of Subaru of America allowing Subaru to morph into the now only slightly quirky brand that encourages us to Share the Love. Bricklin went on to create and manufacture the Bricklin SV-1 sports car and to import the Fiat-derived Yugo from Yugoslavia. These and other automotive career hijinks demonstrate that he is a man that does not let reality dampen his interminable automotive optimism.
Meanwhile back in Ohio my 360 was delivering many miles per gallon (Subaru ads claimed up to 66 mpg; I was averaging in the high 30’s) and massive grins per mile. Mechanically it ranks as one of the most trouble-free cars I have ever owned. I do not recall any repairs during my brief tenure with the Subie. I did have it tuned up replacing plugs, points and distributor cap. I kept the old distributor cap on my desk as a pencil holder. I also recall buying two cycle oil to keep the little lump lubricated. We determined that oil designed for marine use was best so I would periodically go to Bargain City, Marion’s preeminent discount retailer in the days before Walmart, to purchase it. Conveniently it was not necessary to manually mix the gas and oil. Instead oil was fed from a small storage reservoir in the engine compartment that one had to remember to top up when fueling. The fuel tank was located above the engine and gas was gravity fed to the carburetor negating the need for a fuel pump.
My partner in crime that summer was gal pal Cindy, the “Granddaughter of the Guy Who Invented the Klondike Bar”.
You might think such a girl would be above hanging out with a guy who drove a Subaru 360 but it turned out her pedigree was more honorific than financial. She proved to be a competent and entertaining co-pilot. With her in the passenger seat I recall driving the 360 around town flat out which was really the only way you could drive it if you wanted to keep up with traffic even at urban speeds. Naturally I had to do a 0 to 60 test and I recorded a time of 42 seconds.
The Subaru had a three speed transmission with a dog leg layout. First gear was lower left, second was upper right and third was lower right. If I allowed my hand to linger on the shift knob in high gear Cindy’s nearby presence rewarded me with the tingling sensations a teenage male experiences when he is in close proximity to a lass’ knee.
Cindy had not previously learned to “drive stick” so on occasion we would switch seats to afford her the opportunity to practice. She proved adept at shifting and equally adept at flinging the Subaru around corners. Every corner felt exciting “at speed” though in reality I doubt we were actually cornering much faster than is normal in a “real” car. There was a good amount of body roll and it often felt like the little 10” wheels up front were going to break away but with so little weight and power that proved to be impossible.
Parking was never an issue and we would go out of our way to look for spaces so small that even the 360 could not be parallel parked. Instead I would back the rear end into the space, open the rear hinged door, get out of the car and lift the front of the car by its bumper allowing me to bounce it into the space.
The Subaru was a hard top but the roof was a fiberglass panel held in place by the same sort of rubber gasket used on windshields of that era. I discovered that by pulling out the rubber locking strip the roof and rear window could be easily removed in a few minutes allowing for al fresco motoring. An added benefit was that one could approach the car from the rear and easily step from the bumper to the rear seat. This mode of entry proved popular with my back seat passengers on clear Summer nights.
Like all Summers this one ended too fast. As the days grew shorter I left the Subaru 360 behind with Rocky and returned to school in Philadelphia where I had a daily reminder of my time with the 360. Did I mentioned that there were van and truck versions of the 360 going by the name Sambar? The van configuration stood just over 60” tall.
Outside my dorm an innovative hot dog vendor operated out of a converted Sambar van. Taking into account ground clearance the inside height of the van must have been under 54”. I hope that vendor had a good set of knee pads.
Next week: I seek out the perfect car for New England winters.
Last Week: 1965 Renault 8 – Beginnings.
More:
Junkyard Classic: Subaru 360 – It All Started With This Little Wart
Maybe not in the US but in Israel quite a few of these sold to people looking to buy their first brand new car. With speed limits as they were and on Israeli roads the lack of performance did not seem to be as critical as in the US. We also had the 360s replacement Kei and the minivan versions. Nowadays of course very few are left and are mostly at the hands of collectors who appreciate them for their rarity.
Here’s an Israeli ad for the replacement, extolling the virtues of it being a real family car on account of its four doors…
PS: I believe some people fitted air condition to the later Rex (yes)… I dread to think what this did to the “performance”.
I used to pass one of these on my way to middle school in the mid 90’s.
It was sitting in a guy’s yard just rotting.
After high school it disappeared.
It wasn’t rusty due to being in South Carolina.
I wish I knew where it went it was a goofy looking little car
Looks like something you would find on the discount table in a Wal-Mart store that is about to close.
I like to think if Revell had made a model of this car it would have been larger than the car itself
What a wonderful followup to a Renault 8.
I begin to have dreams of this being a truly interesting COAL series: No broughams, B-bodies, muscle cars, or other examples of American four-wheeled boredom.
This is one of my favorite COAL series so far. Bicycles and quirky little foreign cars.
While this is a very fun article, weird and wacky micro-cars and other Euro oddballs do get a lot of attention in the car world.
This is one of the few sites however that gives a lot of coverage of Broughams and other non-muscle domestics, which I’d argue are grossly under-represented in the car enthusiast universe.
It’s not an either/or however, and I really enjoy reading about (and living with) any car that’s not a muscle car or popular sports car (nothing wrong with these of course, just not all that interesting)
I agree! While I’m not the biggest fan of Broughams in general (with a few notable exceptions), I’m glad CC gives them attention that other sites don’t. I enjoyed this article as well – go figure. I like reading about oddballs, whether foreign or domestic, large or small. What I’m glad I see little of here is a billion articles on the same copycat faux-SS restorations of a ’69 Camaro, “10 Reasons Why the E30 M3 is TEH greatest EVAR LOLOL!!!”, or “You Won’t Believe How Fast We Went Around The Nübergring in our Lamborghini Lobotomy”.
I will squeeze in one classic American car in a couple of weeks.
This COAL series is the antidote to mine, it appears! I’m also enjoying reading about these quirky little foreign rides, the likes of which were mostly gone by my time (and which I wasn’t so interested in as a youngster anyway…)
Interesting TV commercial. I always wondered how the name evolved from Su-bar-u to Su-ba-ru
Interesting article. I’ve seen pictures of the Subaru 360 sedan, but I’ve never seen a Subaru 360 sedan or wagon in person. I did see at one time, a Subaru Sambar 360 pickup truck. I thought it would either make a perfect golf cart, or a good vehicle for getting in and around the city or suburban neighbourhood driving. With its 360cc engine, in stock form, and its tiny size, I can’t imagine either vehicle making interstate freeway driving.
I have seen one – the Subaru dealership in Allentown, PA has one in the showroom. It’s actually smaller in person than it appears in these pictures.
I would imagine so. The Sambar I saw was smaller than a Mini of the same vintage.
If you come down to the Portland area, stop by Dick Hannah Subaru in Vancouver, WA and visit the 360 on display in the showroom there. (My guess is that a good proportion of the 360s still in existence in the US are in the hands of Subaru dealers.) It *is* tiny – an Impreza looks massive by comparison (and probably weighs four times as much).
I’ve never even seen one of these things, not even in a museum, or a junk yard. And you’ve owned one? This is gonna be the best COAL series ever. I’m trying to imagine why Subaru went for the odd shift pattern. Must have been a matter of necessity rather than by design.
Odd shift pattern? Same pattern as prewar Chevy and every other floorshift three speed I can think of, It was just a standard three speed H pattern.
When I was stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB in the early 70’s I used to see one periodically, that was the only one I ever saw in the states. However when I was briefly stationed at CCK Air Base in Taiwan in 1973 Subie 360’s were all over the place.
Great, entertaining article on a quirky car I knew little about. So glad you (and Cindy) were never in an accident in this thing. I chuckled at the thought of you “parallel” parking this thing tail-in. It couldn’t have been longer than a mid-70’s Buick Electra 225 was wide when parked that way.
“Wow!” is all I have to say… (c:
I saw one of these last year in Dearborn!
I remember seeing one at the LeMay Family Collection here in Tacoma, Washington.
Never seen one of these for reals, but a black one one turns up in the Amazon series “Man in the High Castle”, as seen below.
BTW, the whole series is something of a festival of Curbside Classics, as it takes place in an alternate 1962 where Germany and Japan won WWII and occupy parts of the US. Since it’s Toyota week, I feel compelled to include a shot of a Toyopet Tiara and Crown Custom taxi that show up as background furniture in numerous scenes.
Both photos from Internet Movie Car Database.
The 1962 Philip K. Dick novel on which the series is “based” (nearly all the characters are newly invented, and those with the same names as in the novel might as well have different names too) mentions no Subarus, but there is one appearance of a Toyopet, in the scene where Frank, having stepped outside his jewelry-making shop to smoke a marijuana cigarette, is suddenly arrested: “They hustled him toward a parked unmarked Toyopet.”
Thanks. It’s interesting that in black the lines of the car look completely different.
You’d think that in an alternate history where Japan won, they’d have built more luxurious cars sooner.
Mercedes-Benz is mentioned twice – a German consul in San Francisco uses a “220-E,” and another Mercedes belongs to the civilian Wyndam-Matson (he’s Frank’s and Ed’s boss in the fake Colt .45-making business).
In the real 1962 the Japanese made no luxury cars, certainly not on the level of the Mercedes with its wood-and-leather interior and its long engineering tradition. In the 1962 of the novel, the Japanese occupiers of the Pacific coast would simply import German cars from the Reich.
(In the first chapter of one of Dick’s early all-is-not-what-it-seems novels, Time Out of Joint, a clue to the situation is given when a “lovely shiny red Tucker sedan” drives by and is viewed with envy – it’s evidently a new 1959 Tucker, not a 10-year-old car. Or is it?)
I used to see a few of these around central Florida at the turn of the ’70s but they seemed to rapidly disappear. One of the nerdiest kids at my high school drove a light blue 360 in around ’71-’72. After the sales of the 360 were officially stopped, the local Subaru dealer (also a Buick-AMC outlet) had leftover new examples on sale for $399 apiece.
There used to be (early ’90s) a massive stash of these on hwy. 18 on the way to the Oregon coast. An old farmhouse with 360s all over the field. I always used to pull over and marvel over them. Must have been 12-15 cars.
Did Malcolm Bricklin really green-light those commercials without first checking the correct pronunciation of the car he was advertising?
Find a book called ‘Where the Suckers Moon’ about the marketing of the Subaru brand in the US. The pronunciation it now has in Western countries (including here in oz) was the suggestion of one of the copywriters at Wieden & Kennedy. It certainly rolls off our tongues more easily but I’d hazard a guess that the pronunciation in the commercial is the correct original language version.
Its pronounced the Japanese way in New Zealand too, maybe because we were early adopters of Japanese cars, tourists and traders. First time we realised the world had another way was when Debbie Harry sang about Mercuries and Suber-ROOS
SOA had been using “Suba-ROO” long before the W&K debacle (I’ve read “Suckers” – tedious, but still a must-read). Here’s one of the Ruth Gordon (“Whoop-de-doo for my Subaru!) spots from the early ’80s….
Thanks. We had ‘Say Hi to your Hyundai’ over here. Groan.
Wow, what a unique COAL. I actually saw some in the bones’ section of used car dealers.
I would love to see a comparison with the Goggomobile.
A Japanese version of the original Fiat 500? A valid comparison?
Not quite. While it had plenty of room I don’t think it had the day to day practicality of a Fiat 500 or a Mini.
I’d go as far as to say the 360 is a lemon. Miles per gallon in the thirties? Wikipedia says it got 25 to 35 MPG. That’s disgraceful for 25 peak horsepower. The sticker price of $1297 is insulting when a VW Beetle sticker was $1699. You get 400% more car for 25% more cost if you choose the Beetle AND the Beetle meets all the crash and safety standards AND is designed for long distance prolonged high speed driving which the 360 is not and is therefore of no use in the great plains states(probably why I’ve never seen one). I’m not even a Beetle fan. I owned a Beetle for a year many years ago and decided the car was impractical, unreliable, and uneconomical but compared to the 360 it is space age technology and by far a better buy. I can’t understand who in their right mind would buy a 360.
Definitely a curiosity and a strange relic of a different time and place.
Michael you describe yourself as “misguided” but I think you are doing yourself a disservice. It was Malcolm Bricklin who was the really misguided one! He never seemed to learn from his mistakes. I have never seen one of these Subes in person but did see and even sit in a BMW Isetta “bubblecar” in the early 1980s. I wonder how the two compare.
I’ve driven an Isetta. Probably about the same on power to weight ratio. You sit higher in an Isetta, but I think in some ways it feels more like a toy car than the Subie did. You can’t dislike the door in front though.
The Isetta weighed 147 lbs more and its most powerful engine offered 13 hp. The Subaru started off with 16 hp in 1958 and grew to 25 hp standard with 36 hp optional.
Remember seeing the TV ad’s in 1968. Along with the Su-barr-u pronunciation. Beautiful blonde girl in mini skirt stepping in through the suicide door.
In So Cal, the neighborhood had a couple of 360’s running around and also saw a Sambar van running around town as well.
I didn’t think you’d have anything odder than the Renault 8 in Ohio, then this comes along. Well played, sir, well played!
Too bad Cindy didn’t turn out to be Ohio’s version of Sue-Ellen Mischke, the heiress to the Oh Henry! candy bar fortune, but I remember that tingle, reason enough to insist on driving manual transmission cars.
My theory is that as most manuals became five speeds with high gear up and to the right the lack of tingling negated the desire for the manual. That is why automatics now reign supreme.
But there’s hope. I now have a couple of six speeds and high gear is wear it belongs.
Amazingly enough I had several enounters with these – first was when they went on sale in our home town – Miller’s Department Store was the local ‘dealership’. My dad was a real oddball car kind of guy (he drove a string of early 2-stroke SAABS), so these interested him. I don’t know how close he came to buying one, but a tv news article about what happened when some lady in a Chevy Impala et al ran into/over/through one ended the discussion with my mom. I also remember the Consumer Reports called them ‘the most unsafe car in America’.
In 1978 I moved to Japan and ended up living there for most of the next decade. I saw a few of these on the streets and even got to drive one to satisfy my curiosity. It was like finding out Hobbits actually exist – I mean, wouldn’t you buy a Hobbit a drink just for the chance to talk to him? In a land where the speed limit is generally 40 KPH they were less out of place and didn’t seem unsafe but even there they were woefully obsolete and soon disappeared from the streets. I had a Honda Life kei, and it was probably two generations beyond the Subaru – it seemed very much a mini Civic while the Subie seemed ….postwar pathetic. These were cheap, but in the go-go Japan of the 80’s nobody was poor enough to buy one.
Edit: a picture of a Honda Life – mine was yellow
https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/show_picture.pl?l=english&rais=1&oiu=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F1%2F11%2F1st_generation_Honda_Life.jpg&sp=296587e3decdb15f9a2a04555c2aa0b7
My uncle had the red Skyline in the back of that photo – except for the wheels. 🙂
CHALLENGE- Find one with the optional semi-automatic transmission. They were much like the VW Automatic Stick Shift.
I recall a small parking lot full of them, cars, vans and trucks, a few blocks away from an Olds dealer in La Jolla, CA around 1969. At the time I was 11 and taller than the van was, but I did get a thrill checking them all out. I had seen some of those commercials featured above running on Los Angeles TV stations, and these were the first I had seen in the wild.
There used to be a pristine Subaru 360 at an ornate beach house about 4 miles south of the lot where I first saw them. This was in the last 5 years or so, IIRC.
The early Sambar is a trip. I saw one nearby a couple of years ago, and it’s about the size of an American sofa. For narrow, crowded urban streets, it would make a decent amount of sense, but for U.S. suburban conditions it seems more adventuresome than sensible.
I bought one of these about 40 years ago. I still have it, but it doesn’t get much use these days. Mine is a 1970 model that has the overdrive (“Over Top”) 4th gear for “high-speed” driving. (This is defined in the owner’s manual as over 35 miles per hour.) I had one of the vans for a while also but sold it off many years ago. It’s kind of like having a go-kart that you can drive on the street.
That’s the great thing about this site. Not only do we have someone who previously owned an oddball car like this, we have someone who *still* owns one!
When I was going to college in Indianapolis in 1968 or ’69 there was a dealer that sold these new on the west side. I’m thinking it was on Washington Street. Any way, the dealer was also a used car lot and all the inventory was outside. I remember thinking they were little tin cans and very cheap looking. Of course, the price should have told me that. I also remember thinking that I could almost haul one around in the trunk of my ’64 Galaxie. That might not have been a bad idea given all the trouble that turkey gave me. I even stopped by the lot one day to get a closer look. I think they also had a van on the lot , too. They did stock several of the cars. I used to see a few of them driving around town. I am not sure how long they lasted as I graduated and moved away a year later.
I didn’t think that you could top the “odd factor” in the midwest beyond the Renault, but here you went and did. This would have been incredibly fun for a college kid during the summer. It would, however, become tiring having to live with it in real life.
I loved the story about Miss Klondike. As a lover of ice cream, I am sad to report that modern corporate ownership has ruined what was once a delightful ice cream treat.
One of Malcolm Bricklin’s post-Consumer Reports attempts at selling the Subaru 360s was Fastrack, a plan to use the unsold cars as go-karts. I’d heard that they were rebodied as formula racing cars and that they were used to start Malibu Grand Prix. Apparently, the use of the Subarus wasn’t a success. The cars were rollover prone and slow on track. Fastrack was sold to the people that started Malibu Grand Prix, but they went with cars that were purpose-built and powered by single rotor Wankel engines.
Here’s a photo of Subaru 360s on a Fastrack circuit in Orange County:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ocarchives/7048920845/in/photostream/
One way of getting rid of unsold inventory was to give them away. KCOP-TV, channel 13 in Los Angeles had a weekly sweepstakes and first prize was a Su-bar-u 360.
Cute ! .
I remember folks driving these in Guatemala when I lived there mid 1970’s .
-Nate
Great story! I have seen one of these although they were not sold in Australia I believe.
Subaru did a great ad here when they launched the XV (Crosstrek) that had a series of iconic Subarus from the 360 to STi rally cars all driving into a big mobile 1960’s carwash thing, and out the other end pops the XV.
Another fun read! It’s always fun to try something different when you’re not spending your own money on it, though of course you were bound by constraints of practicality and affordability.
Hi from Western Australia.
I am currently restoring the “GT” version of this vehicle, the Subaru Young SS (they left out the 360 in the name with this variant). 36 HP was not “optional” to the standard model 360 as a previous writer stated, but solely supplied with the Young SS. This variant and the more “cosmetic” (did not have the “hotter” motor) Young S were produced at the end of the 360’s ten-year reign in Japan as best-selling Kei car (1968-71) in direct response to being knocked off that perch by the higher-tech Honda N360. Check out Wikipedia for more info, the Subaru 360 Driver’s Club of America (http://www.subaru360club.org) has hundreds of owner/members, including many overseas members like myself, and runs a very active discussion forum. To the previous Oz writer: they did bring them to Australia, but only in microscopic numbers – see: http://www.mysubaru360.com/Subaru_360s_in_Australia.html for a brief run-down.
The most fun, apart from driving these vehicles is the reactions from folk as you motor by them!