Kiss another sedan goodbye after the next model-year. Subaru's Legacy, which has been around longer than any other current Subaru product, will drive off into the sunset. The usual reason why.....the public shift to crossovers.

Dropping the Legacy, which is American-built in Lafayette, IN, with American labor, will free up some factory capacity for other hot-selling Subaru products.

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/04...-discontinued/

https://www.torquenews.com/1084/say-...oogle_vignette

 

This car looks like it was designed in the 90's, nobody will notice when it's gone.

 

I forgot this was still even being made. Same with the Malibu until I clicked the link, how is that dinosaur still around?

 

The strong survive, the weak do not. That's what it comes down to. The Legacy is extremely dated inside and out. It is no surprise. Meanwhile, they cannot build enough Camrys and Accords to meet the demand.

 

I honestly didn't even know they still made the Legacy. I thought it was discontinued years ago. But honestly, that's probably on me. I stopped caring when they dropped both the Turbo (which came back later) and the manual transmission.

 

Through decades past, Legacy bore the Subaru badge,
From '89 it launched, a pioneer at large.
In Indiana born, the first on U.S. soil,
Aimed to charm the market, with all-wheel drive its foil.

Six generations came, but little else did shift,
While rivals leaped ahead, Legacy just adrift.
No major leaps in tech, nor design to behold,
In a world moving fast, it remained in the mold.

Sales once proud and strong, began to wane and slip,
As consumers' tastes changed, Legacy lost its grip.
From sedans to SUVs, the public's love did sway,
Leaving Legacy behind, as Subaru paved a new way.

Now as electric dreams replace the gasoline throng,
Legacy's chapter ends, where it once belonged.
A lesson stark in time, of innovation's need,
For without reinvention, even legends concede.

 

This was a great looking car at one point.

 

haha, chatgpt?

i had a legacy wagon decades ago... thing was a hoot in the snow and awd was always reassuring even in rain.

but now the legacy just looks bad outside and inside.

 

Definitely sad to lose another sedan.

I had the previous gen Legacy Sport and it was a great car for the $$$.
It had all the features you can want and excellent AWD system.

The new gen offered a slight refresh but made it look softer. The CVT trans continues to be a weak point and they took away turbo and 6cyl that previous gen Legacy sedans offered. Sometimes i think these companies purposely come out with half assed products knowing they will be cancelled anyway.

WRX will be next on the chopping block.

Subaru as a brand is kind of in no man’s land at this point.
They make strange looking wagons for regular people and really lost the enthusiast niche customers that really helped support the brand.

 

This gen WRX was the first one I thought was ugly. All that black plastic cladding around the wheel well looks terrible.

I would have to imagine the LS is done too.


Agreed. I feel the same way about Mazda.

 

Yep. For quite some time, if the ask was "I want a non-luxury sport sedan" the best answer was usually Legacy GT/Spec-A/etc.

You can see it coming a mile away. STi was always manual-only, but is gone now. The regular WRX has historically had an 80% manual take rate, so what do they do? Introduce a new "sportiest" trim level and make it CVT-only. Because why give customers what they ACTUALLY want.

 

Now that's a winning concept. Lol

Listening to the customer.
or fail... 🤓

 

LOL! But I can already see the reaction in planning meetings when this concept is brought up. "No way! That won't work, are you crazy!"

 

Except maybe for a few dedicated sports-cars, traditional three-pedal manuals the U.S. are clearly on the way out, for three reasons. One, much of the population is aging, with arms/legs growing weaker, and for one's knee to be constantly on the clutch-pedal and hand-rowing gears is just not a practical option any more. Two, while there are still wide-open areas and easy-causing, traffic in and around so many cities today is so bad that constantly starting/stopping with the clutch pedal is also not a practical option any more. Three, with most manuals, the lever's gear-position you are in or shifting to is not clearly marked on the dash with a light/digit or other indicator, so you usually have to do it by hand-feel/motion alone and the H-pattern on the shift lever itself. That means it can be easy to miss a gear or two on upshifts, lugging the engine, or accidentally shift into too low a gear when downshifting, which can seriously jolt the driveline and/or overspeed the engine.

Ferrari once used a nice gated-shifter system which showed you exactly what gear the lever is in (an excellent idea, IMO), but I haven't seen many, if any, other automakers adopt anything like that.

 

Let me stop you there. They are on the way out in general, but we're not talking about cars in general. We're talking about the WRX, which has for probably 20+ years straight has had the highest manual take rate of ANY car made by ANY manufacturer--79% for the standard WRX, 100% (obviously) for the now-discontinued STi. When both were available and their sales volume was combined, just one buyer out of ten chose the automatic.

The WRX--on its own--accounted for 25% of ALL manual-transmission cars sold in the United States in 2023. There were 31 models available from 17 manufacturers with a manual in 2023. One in four units actually sold to customers was a WRX.