A later Brumby - what could have been .

[discopotato03]

This deserves its own thread so ...

Coxy owns and drives a late 80s Brumby and for his purposes its a good thing .

We have pondered at times what could have been had Subaru continued on with the ute theme in a later body style .
I mentioned that the L Series platform could have been a show and he said that the coup or wagon could have been altered to give it the cargo area .
The reality is that the Brumby and L Series pretty much lasted into the early 90's so probably need to look beyond . Really both of those types took out dated technology way past where it needed to go anyway .

Coxy reckons the early Liberty Wagon would have been a decent enough platform being a bit larger and far more modern with its EJ engine and driveline . Suspension wise the early AWD Libs are a rather large jump in refinement and if anything less difficult to work on .

History showed that it never happened which is a shame because there was a market for such a vehicle and it probably would have sold well .

One thing that may have been considered at the time was the fact that Subaru and a few other manufacturers were trying very hard to promote AWD , convincing the market that cars with it were not agricultural trucks was not easy because everyone associated 4WD with Landrovers and Landcruisers .
A lot of the market in those days had a choice of similar cars in FrWD or AWD and when test driving them couldn't tell the difference - any price difference met with huge sales resistance because people felt they couldn't tell the difference so why pay for it .

Nowadays people take AWD in their stride and its one of the things that adds refinement to the average 2-3 tonne bloated barge many people insist on using for sealed roads transport .

I think a later platform Brumby could easily have been made but Subaru marketing was looking at the overall AWD sales picture and not having a ute was not a big sacrifice to make in their scheme of things .

A .

[H-top]

I concur.
I cannot think of why anyone who uses a uterus that would
not like AWD as a standard.
What could have been......
Spacecab RS Liberty with DR/AWD/4X4


Cheers
Sam

[H-top]

On a second thought, 3.0R premium?

[discopotato03]

You missed the point , I was saying that they didn't want the main stream road car customer thinking that their AWD car would drive like a light truck .

It was getting the buying public to break the 4WD and truck association that was the hard part .
Over time they made the breakthrough with the "AWD" theme and separated people from the leaf spring/live axle/steering box association .

A .

[maxxair]

Another Modern brumby thread, theres a few of them lately. pehaps we get a worldwide petition going?

[dfoyl]

The Liberty size was too large to make a niche-market small ute. There's really only 3 small utes in Australia in the past 40 years - Datsun 1200, Brumby (both gens), and Jumbuck (plus the new Jumbuck out this year).

There were plenty of mid-size utes around Liberty size in the late 80s / early 90s - Isuzu Rodeo, Toyota Hilux, Nissan Navara. Yes, they didn't have 4wd/awd but that wasn't really a deal-breaker for the small volume of farmers who bought Brumby's (the Jumbuck is proof that 4wd wasn't the only reason farmers loved the Brumby).

Nowdays there probably is a market for a size between the Jumbuck and the Hilux, etc, as the latter have all grown in size. Pity the Liberty, Forester, etc, have also grown in size to match. The only mid-size Subaru now is the Impreza...

Dean.