You just wanted the flipside of this comment didn't you?

I almost lived in a Subaru Brat. The plan was to buy the $600 one for sale on the Lemon Lot and pile all my shit in the camper. It was an improvement over the 3-door Buick I was living in at the time. Saying "could you please fucking leave me off the taxes this year so I can get a scholarship" was the impetus my parents needed to maybe stopped being such dicks for long enough for me to graduate. It worked, for upwards of two months.

Something Demuro doesn't do there is take the little sucker off road. They're dominant. We predated this whole "battle wagons" thing by a good 20 years because we spent most of our recreational time on dirt and when you're at 7500 feet (with certain trails over 13,000 feet) everything without a turbo or supercharger is underpowered. Chevy stepside with a 350? Nobody cares, Biff 'cuz you're too mechanically incompetent to redo your ring'n'pinions for your 38" BFGs which means the Subaru is going to beat you off the line anyway, ass.

Features Subaru put on their wagons that nobody else ever did:

- Adjustable torsion bar tension. Yeah. You wanna lift your Subaru? You pull a drainplug in the back and put a 17mm socket on that nut there. Reef down on it until you go from 5" of clearance to 11". Front mcphersons are the same way - yeah your track and toe-in aren't great but what is in this life?

- real-time synchronous transfer case. You wanna shift into 4x4 on your Blazer? Stop, get out, lock the hubs, and shift. You wanna shift into compound low? Again, stop. Subaru? Pull up on the Handle Of AWESOME.

- mf'n INDEPENDENT SUSPENSION. Yeah that big dumb Ford with live axle and leaf springs can sure rock crawl, can't it? Unfortunately it has to do it at 15mph because thanks to the unsprung weight of 400lbs of axles, 200lbs of brakes and 300lbs of tires it is going to leap off a bluff the minute you give it an excuse. Subaru? Fucker will RIP across the desert at an easy 40mph. Also it has fender clearance for 29" tires without even getting stupid on it (the ones it has are 24". It wouldn't be until they I-shit-you-not Hummer that off-roaders were willing to accept independent suspension as something real manly men would accept in their life. The cultural head-wedgery around it all was appalling.

Yeah, they're slow. Yeah, there's not a lot you can do about it. You can push an NP205 or NP203 by a few hundred horsepower. You can push an 8.8" or Dana 44 up to 5-600 HP 'cuz they're big and dumb. The TH350 between the mill and the transfer case is going to shed teeth at 450lbft or so but if you were serious you'd put in a Muncie or Doug Nash anyway, it is known. The only Subaru transmission that will take more than about 150hp, though, is the one in the XT6 and it is sorely lacking a transfer case.

But they are safe as houses, despite Doug's glance askance at the t-tops. I know of four Subarus that rolled (two end-over-end) and while none of them were Brats, none of them collapsed either. that B-pillar is every bit as robust as the one on a 911 Targa. And the gunner seats in the back (which were incredibly dope to ride in when you were 12, and the Jesus handles are FUN) have shoulder belts. And, like I said - independent suspension. You need to be an asshole to threaten life and limb in a Subaru. You pretty much need to be going downhill with a brake failure to be in a situation it won't handle to the point of overturning.

they're great little cars. And I'll bet they'd electric quite nicely. Ridiculous little creature has a 20 gallon tank; that plus a stack behind the seats in the bed and you'd probably be able to get 80-100 miles of range out of it.