If you’d told someone in the 80s the last mainstream wagon in America would be Japanese, they’d be amazed

It doesn’t sound weird now, but if you’d told someone in the 80s the last mainstream wagon in America would be Japanese, they certainly wouldn’t believe you.

Subaru is a household name now, and often, the first car you think of when you think of a station wagon is the Outback, but there was once a time when people didn’t trust the brand for a reliable family outdoorsy wagon.

The Outback has evolved a lot since its somewhat mediocre debut in the early 1990s, but now it stands almost alone in its domination of the station wagon market.

The future of the Subaru Outback is…weird. We wonder what the new version of the last mainstream wagon in America will do for the legacy car, will it bring about the end of its market domination?

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The last mainstream wagon in America

Welcome to America, where the roads are built for big cars that are ready to go off-road at the drop of a hat. And when people look for big cars, they often look for SUVs or a nice station wagon.

When you think of a popular American station wagon, what comes to mind? A Kia Soul? A Volvo V60? Most probably you would think of the last mainstream wagon in America: the Subaru Outback.

It doesn’t seem weird now, but if you’d told someone in the 80s the last mainstream wagon in America would be created by a Japanese automaker, they would hardly believe you.

A look back at the history of the Subaru Outback shows how the development of it has caused its absolute market domination.

And maybe the Japanese automaker needs to look at the past to carry on its market domination in the future.

Back to the Future

The iconic 90’s Subaru Outback debuted in 1995 as the Legacy Outback. That’s because the Japanese brand decided it needed something akin to the SUV, which was having a real moment in the US.

The original models were based on low-riding Legacy wagons and basically stayed the same apart from some extra cladding.

It wasn’t until 1996 that the Outback was raised higher, given bigger tires, and huge fog lights, and unsurprisingly became one of the most popular wagons in America.

Subaru continued its market domination into the new millennium, and the third-generation Outback was seen as probably the peak model for the Japanese brand.

By the 2010s, the fourth-generation Outback looked very different, shedding a lot of its iconic cladding and discarding the moonroof, which was a well-loved feature.

That didn’t seem to affect the sales, however.

We’ve been given a glimpse into the future of the Subaru Outback, and it looks more like an SUV in design than any of the previous generations.

The angular features of the new Outback, though, just don’t sit as well as the iconic soft curves of the original popular design.

It looks like Subaru has decided to step away from the Outback we know and love, which could cause it’s downfall as the last mainstream wagon in America.

But looking at the history of this car, it’s so beloved that Subaru will probably still dominate the market for years to come.

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