Summary:
Ugly and badly engined.




"Bob Crantz" wrote in message
.net...
Hold on to your hat Robbie!!!!

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/con...6021648489006/


B9 Tribeca


9 August 2005
By Robert Farago




Without any prompting whatsoever, my 11-year-old daughter took
one look at
the new Subaru B9 Tribeca and said "ew". And there you have it.
Scooby's
first-ever SUV is an irredeemably gruesome beast whose design
should have
been aborted a femtosecond after conception. While Subaru would
like to
convince us that "ugly ass" and "dynamic styling" are
synonymous, even a
pre-teen knows that repulsive is not, and never will be, the
new cool. In
the race for SUV buyers' affections, the horrific B9 sets off a
mile behind
the starting line.

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.




OK, I've said my piece: there are very few eyes in which the B9
is beauty
beheld. Now, on to the B9's interior; or, as Joseph Conrad
would say, "The
horror. The horror."

In order to fulfill their inscrutability quota, several
Japanese
manufacturers have tried to fashion their cars' dashboards into
a single,
flowing, organic shape. Subaru's B9 provides a particularly
egregious
example of this entirely pointless pursuit-- with the extra
annoyance of
meaningless symmetry and buttons that are about as pleasant to
prod as a
week-old cockroach carcass. Well maybe the goofy binnacle isn't
ENTIRELY
pointless-- its lower portion's striking resemblance to a set
of fallopian
tubes continues the reproductive theme without. Anyway, once
again, form
murders function.




But wait! There's more! In case the cabin lacked sufficient
cognitive
dissonance to completely distract you from the business of
driving, the
gauges are hooded inside a small cowl. This sporty touch makes
as much sense
as a parachute on a scuba diver. Or a seven-seat SUV with less
leg room than
a small-sized envelope. In fact, there's only way to
accommodate seven
humans in a B9: the front AND middle seat passengers must slide
their chairs
all the way forwards. The solution puts the steering wheel in
contact with
the driver's chest and everyone else in a foul mood.

All of these shortcomings could be forgiven if the B9 drove
with the élan of
the only-slightly-less-ugly and equally cheap-feeling WRX STi.
It doesn't.
Whereas the rally-bred STi has a fire-breathing turbo four in
its belly, the
B9 gets a normally aspirated 250-horse flat six. The
three-liter engine
simply doesn't have enough torque to motivate the 4260lbs.
Scooby without
sending the tach needle on a mad dash towards the redline. This
it does, to
great sonic effect, every time you even think about building up
a head of
steam. What's more, power increases exponentially at the top of
the rev
range, giving the B9's engine an unpleasant on/off character.




At the same time, the B9's another behemoth that's been geared
for parsimony
rather than pleasure. One wonders how many mpg's she'd muster
if the gearbox
didn't shift into fourth by the time you've accepted personal
liability for
your own stupidity via the touch screen. The fact that the
slushbox only
dishes-up five cogs, and that the last one is longer-legged
than Marisa
Miller, doesn't help. One hill climb proves that there are
times when three
out of five IS bad.

Once you get up to speed-- and find a way to maintain it-- the
B9's ride and
handling are on the right side of entertaining. Although the B9
is based on
a stretched version of the Subaru Outback, the company ditched
the wagon's
trick multi-link rear suspension for a more robust
double-wishbone set-up,
and compensated for the loss by stiffening the chassis. Right
answer. The B9
soaks-up lumps and bumps like a luxury car, yet holds the road
with
remarkable poise for one so large. That said, the B9's
recalcitrant engine -
gearbox combo makes mid-corner throttle corrections a
hit-or-miss [the
scenery] affair. Despite Subaru's legendary brand loyalty, the
B9 is not the
STi driver's best choice for a family car.




In fact, it's hard to know exactly who should buy a Subaru B9.
The only clue
comes from the vehicle's third name "Tribeca". That's the
hipster's
sobriquet for the New York City neighborhood in the "TRIangle
BElow CAnal
street". It's the 'hood where artists sell "challenging" work
for outrageous
prices. If you see the Subaru B9's hideousness and ****-poor
packaging as
representative of Subaru's iconoclastic artistry, you might
want to go
there. Otherwise, don't.




" the B9 is not the STi driver's best choice for a family car.
"

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaaa!!!!!

Great review!

aaaahaahahaahahahahahahaahahahahahaaaa!!!!