A later Brumby - what could have been .
Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:18 am
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 .
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 .
