Thursday, December 27, 2007

What’s a Subaru?


I believe everybody knows that a Subaru is a car brand. That answers the title question. Actually, the bigger question is: What country manufactures the Subaru car brand? Is it: (a) an American car, (b) a European car, (c) a Japanese car or (d) a Philippine car. Process of elimination tells you it is not a letter d. Philippines prides itself of the “King of the Road” the infallible Jeepney and the only similarity between the Subaru and the Pinoy workhorse is the four wheels. It is also not a Euro car as these have distinct sounding names such as Citroen, Peugeot, Mercedes. This leaves us with either a US or a Japanese brand. Truth to tell, in my three and a half decades of existence and a car junkie at that, I thought all along that it was an American car. In the 80s, they had this small truck called Subaru Brat which really caught my attention. You’ll see my Vroom Room Y2007 in an earlier entry and the Brat was in my 1987 to 1989 list. I only learned it was Japanese from a fellow car aficionado who was probably a notch or two higher than me. Heck, this officemate – friend of mine knows by heart the engine models of locally released cars! Ibang klase talaga!

When we were shopping for a replacement for our trusty Toyota psuedo SUV, we were looking at a Subaru Forester 2.0X priced at P1,275M. The beauty of the Subaru nowadays is that it is being distributed and serviced by Motor Image. Before, it was “bahala ka sa buhay mo” type of servicing so it was not practical for us. The Forester has a wow appeal (deserves a second look) and you won’t see much on the road. In fact in our hometown in Tarlac, I only see one silver Forester on the streets. We were eyeing the black Forester but when placed side by side with the CR-V, it didn’t measure up to our expectation. The CR-V was still a more pragmatic choice. Then there was the Subaru Impreza WRX Sti rally car which should be in my Vroom Room list. It would be a nice weekend car especially if you had P2 million to spare. I’m the rally car type of guy and don’t fancy the F1 series (Formula One). My race car driver idol is Sebastien Loeb of the WRC (World Rally Circuit) and not the F1 god Michael Schumacher.

To answer the 65 million dollar question, a Subaru is a Japanese car brand made popular in the United States because they are the only car manufacturer who produces horizontally opposed four cylinder engines. Talk about making a difference!

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