1991 Subaru Legacy Sport Sedan: Needs More Sport

From the February 1991 issue of Car and Driver.

When Subaru announced it would install a turbocharger on its flagship sedan, we excitedly anticipated the arrival of the Legacy From Hell. Imagine: 217 horsepower, 0 to 60 in 6.9 seconds, four-wheel drive. Why, John Buffum could drive this car out of the showroom Friday night and come back Monday morning with a massive SCCA PRO Rally trophy strapped to the back seat.

“No, no, no that car,” said Subaru’s Fred Heiler when we asked about this Legacy Sport Sedan’s stateside arrival. “This is a tamer, more mainstream version of the car for the US”

Uh-oh. You hear the word “mainstream” and you just know it’s going to include “Baby on Board” signs and free tapes of John Denver’s greatest hits.

Here’s the bad news: We won’t see the 217-horse four-cam because (1) it’s expensive to build, (2) it’s intended only as a rally homologation exercise, and (3) it doesn’t fit Subaru’s image in America, which, as takes place, sounds nothing like John Denver’s greatest hits medley.

What we get instead is a Legacy Sport Sedan with a small water-cooled IHI turbocharger that boosts the 2.2-liter SOHC boxer’s output from 130 to 160 hp. Rocket buyers will be disappointed, although the engine’s more powerful stats are an extra 44 pound-feet of torque arriving 1600 rpm earlier than before.

It’s all more important than it sounds. This turbocharged engine feels as smooth as a normally aspirated engine, with juice delivered from 2000 to 5500 rpm in a smooth, fat stream. That is Subaru’s intention. The turbo inlet is small, and both the angle and curvature of the turbine blades are designed for fast spooling. Throttle response is excellent, and there is no turbo lag. In fact, there is no boost gauge in the cockpit. If it weren’t for the chrome “Turbo” badge on the bottom of the Legacy and the subtle air intake near the base of the windshield (a scoop that actually works, forcing air directly over the turbo snail for cooler operation), many drivers wouldn’t know that throat puncher this fat, whiskey-throated one is breathing with difficulty.

Under acceleration, the Legacy Sport Sedan accelerates intelligently, but the 160-hp engine is not entirely responsible. Part of the credit goes to clever engineering. The car weighs 3140 pounds, good for a five-passenger sedan with full-time four-wheel drive. It accelerates to 60 mph in just 7.9 seconds and goes through the quarter mile in 16.1 seconds, which makes it half a second faster than the equally powerful Nissan Maxima SE.

We’re not talking power gobs here, and it’s hard to keep your Florsheim right from the 8.7 psi of available boost. The penalty is an observed 19 mpg fuel economy figure—and the Sport Sedan insists on drinking premium unleaded.

We drove for eight hours with Masaru Katsurada, the car’s chief engineer. Katsurada wanted to provide higher steering effort, as well as more aggressive spring rates, anti-roll bars, bushings and tires. But the final tuning, he laments, will require a process he hates: a bunch of engineers, product planners, and general hang-ups—at all the bickering and fussing and fiddling with the settings until, he says, ”I’ll have a hang-up with committee personalities, that is. no personality.”

Katsurada’s solution: “I pointed to one of my engineers, a rally driver named Eiji Tatsumi, and I said to him: ‘Tatsumi, you choose the settings. You drive yourself. You change the suspension until you’re happy. Nobody else. Then drive the Legacy to me. That is the suspension we built.'” And that, he said, is what happened.

The roots of the engineer assembly don’t seem to be deeply buried. He retains the Legacy’s long wheel travel and relatively supple ride. At warp speed, the car still traverses railway crossings and B-roads gracefully and calmly. But as the struts and springs approach their stroke limits, they’re now 70 percent stiffer than non-turbo Legacys.

In day-to-day driving, the ride is almost in line with a standard sedan (which makes you ask, “Why not all Legacys have these springs?”), and you feel the extra stiffness only in the last inch of strut travel. The system clearly works: witness the performance of our Sport Sedan’s 0.80-g skid pad.

The unique tuning extends to the variable steering assist, which flows much faster than the standard Legacy. It’s a worthwhile upgrade, though we still prefer the on-center feel above 45 mph.

Katsurada engineers matched six-inch-wide alloy wheels with Bridgestone RE88s. For no extra money, you can specify the RE92 all season if you live in a particularly dirty climate. But don’t do it unless you have to. Connected to four-wheel drive, the stickier RE88s offer ample grip and fine straight-line tracking, even during near-blinding downpours on greasy roads in Vermont’s Green Mountains. What’s more, we refuse to tease any tire-suspension combination that can stop from 70 mph in 173 feet, matching the BMW 535i’s stopping distance.

Subaru’s full-time all-wheel drive is a well-arranged system that’s reliable and almost transparent in operation, and it accounts for less than a 200-pound penalty. In the Sport Sedan, a smooth five-speed manual is mated to a mechanical center differential with a 50/50 front/rear torque split. A viscous clutch provides limited slip for the rear and center differentials. To accommodate the extra torque, the Sport Sedan has a new hydraulic clutch with a pull-type release bearing. For some reason, this has made the clutch pedal stiff, and now there’s more pickup fuzziness than we appreciate.

Tearing along our favorite rollercoaster roads, the Sport Sedan rarely runs out of wood, but it also doesn’t encourage you to toss it around corners. Adjust the car in rally driver style and it just plows on determinedly, extending its turning radius with the monotone predictability of a Johnny Carson monologue. You can change this trait in only one way: lift off the throttle and the front tires will bite instantly, get back to the business of steering and—presto!—you’re back on track. Product liability lawyers will hate this car.

Buyers interested in the Legacy Sport Sedan don’t need to spend much time talking to salespeople—not a single option is required. In addition to standard four-wheel drive and Bosch ABS, the deal includes air conditioning, power windows, central locking, cruise control, a moonroof (which rattled like a disturbed diamond back in our test car), a stunning 80 by Clarion. -watt stereo with four speakers, and special front seats with new (and nicely shaped) bolsters and backrests.

The Legacy’s cabin is still awash in lifeless plastic surfaces whose sticky details make a mess of the door sills, most of the dash, front fascia, A-pillars, sun visors, and even the steering hub. Subaru’s leather-laden Legacy LSi is just the ticket, but no turbocharged engine is offered in that model.

Bottom line time: The Sport Sedan is carefully engineered, capable and fast in its class. But it’s also a car that drives like it looks—largely tame and bland, somehow failing to excite.

This $19,350 turbocharged Subaru would attract more attention if it were to compete with $16,000 Honda Accords and Mitsubishi Galants. Instead, it finds itself within $650 of a nasty fight with the real figures in the hot $20,000 sports-sedan niche. It is, for example, not as fast and not as powerful as the Ford Taurus SHO. It puts out the same 160 horsepower and rides as well as the gem-like Nissan Maxima SE, but it’s not as luxurious, finely finished, and less satisfying to drive.

The main appeal of this revised Legacy—and the hook on which marketing experts seem willing to hang much of Subaru’s recently dwindling fortunes—is maximum traction: four-wheel drive and ABS. That could lead the car to glory in Vermont, and it might give John Denver the high rocky mountains. But it makes the car a unique choice—sort of a Subaru signature, come to think of it—in most other areas. The Legacy Sport Sedan is a car we respect more than we want.