The year was 2005. YouTube was founded, Dubya was elected to four more years in the White House, and I got my first cell phone — for emergencies only! Oh, and after 30 years of GM, my dad ditched domestic for a then-brand-new, fourth-generation Subaru Legacy.
The Legacy was always something of a secret handshake in a time when people didn’t think they automatically needed an SUV, offering four-season capability and better-than-usual driving dynamics and interior fit-and-finish, albeit in a somewhat plain-looking package, though I always thought it looked sharper than most other family sedans at the time.
But back then, Subaru also felt frisky, apparently thinking it was a great idea to stuff a slightly uptuned version of the WRX’s engine under the hood of the range-topping Legacy GT. So, here you had a grocery getter packing 250 horses, a manual transmission, did the zero-to-100 km/h run in the five-second neighbourhood and could hang with the best of ’em, especially in bad weather. Oh, and you could get it as a wagon. You could say the Legacy was a bit of a sleeper.
Unfortunately, as Subaru grew more mainstream and traded hood scoops and frameless windows for framed windows and CVTs, the magic faded over the years. For a while, we didn’t even have a Legacy GT — but it’s back, and as long as you’re not expecting the sleeper of yesteryear, it’s a midsize sedan that still proves you don’t always need an SUV.
As they’ve always been with the Legacy, your powertrain choices are fairly simple. A 2.5-litre normally aspirated boxer four-cylinder engine is standard, putting out 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque. And as with every Subaru aside from the BRZ, all-wheel-drive is standard fare. For those wanting more kick — and I certainly don’t blame you, in a car that weighs almost as much as one and a half BRZs — a 2.4L turbo-four is available, good for 260 horses and 277 lb-ft of torque. Both engines are direct-injected and CVT-only, and of course, the return of the turbo means the previous-gen 3.6L flat-six has been put out to pasture.
I liked the flat-six in the previous-gen Legacy. It was a responsive and proven powertrain, but I don’t miss the 3.6 as much as I thought I would. The new two-four — cribbed from the Ascent, and there’s a solid chance we’ll see it in the next-gen WRX and STI — is punchy, with most buff books pegging the zero-to-100 km/h time at a tick under six seconds, a solid two-plus seconds ahead of the base, non-turbo Legacy. I don’t doubt those numbers; the Legacy GT makes quick work of merging and passing on the highway. Fuel economy is what you’d expect from a mid-size sedan with all-wheel-drive, the on-board trip computer settling at just over 10 L/100 kilometres after a fairly even split of urban commuting and highway road-tripping.
Still, the Legacy GT isn’t the sports sedan underdog it used to be. Off the line, between the CVT and slight turbo lag, the car seems to take a moment before it realizes you want to go fast, but running through the eight so-called gears using the paddle-shifters puts more of a spring in its step. What would really help would be the addition of SI-Drive, Subaru’s doohickey that enables you to select various drive modes; having the option of Sport or “Sport Sharp” modes available in other Subaru models on the Legacy GT ought to wake it up considerably. It’s a curious omission, given the GT badge’s inherent sporting intentions — and the fact that SI-Drive initially debuted with the Legacy in 2007.
Yeah, I’m a nerd. So what? As if I had anything better to do than to study Subaru brochures when I was 15.
On the flip side, I’d posit this seventh-gen Legacy the most comfortable to date. Now riding atop Subaru’s new modular platform, the Legacy is roomier, stiffer, and depending on the engine you pick, lighter than the outgoing model. I won’t bore you with the spec sheet drivel, but all you need to know is, this latest iteration feels like a completely different car. At speed on the highway, wind and road noise are almost non-existent, and around town, the suspension and chassis tuning soaks up bumps and potholes incredibly well. Only the gnarliest will really disturb you, and even then, it’s more of a muffled thump — you hear it more than you actually feel it.
Steering is on the lighter side, but there’s decent feedback and the Legacy GT stays well composed in tight corners, though the original-equipment Yokohama tires start to complain and lose grip sooner than the rubber found on most of the Legacy’s other rivals. If you like to have fun on spaghetti-shaped roads or tight on-ramps, you may want to invest in grippier footwear.
Styling was never Subaru’s forte, and the latest Legacy is no exception, at least, outside. The overall look is certainly a clean and handsome evolution over the previous-gen Legacy, but rivals like the Hyundai Sonata, Kia K5, and Mazda6 are far more eye-catching and distinctive. But inside, the Legacy GT is impressive, especially in this fully loaded, $39,395 Premier trim. Materials are top notch, the Nappa leather seats look (and feel) like a jar of Jif Creamy peanut butter, visibility is excellent, and the cabin is properly roomy — maybe not class-leading, but front and rear headroom and legroom, as well as cargo space, are competitive.
It’s impressive, but not perfect. There are some weird clashes between smooth and grainy textures on the dashboard, the front LED map lights and incandescent central dome light is a strange cost-cutting move, and an interior trunk handle would be nice, if only to avoid getting ugly smudges and fingerprints all over the bottom edge of the trunk.
And then there’s the infotainment. As a whole, Subaru’s latest iteration of its Starlink infotainment system is actually pretty good. It’s a fairly intuitive system with crisp and sharp graphics, as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, but the execution in the Legacy could be better. Subaru brags about the 11.6-inch inch touchscreen, but it’s not particularly responsive, sometimes taking a few brief moments to respond to your inputs. On top of that, most climate control functions are integrated into the touchscreen, save for a handful of physical buttons for the temperature and defroster functions. Taking your eyes off the road for more than a few seconds to futz with laggy sub-menus because you want your seat to warm up is annoying, distracting, and decidedly un-Subaru-like, given the automaker typically emphasizes no-nonsense ergonomics and switchgear.
Along with all-weather traction, Subaru really cares about safety. By and large, Subaru’s EyeSight suite of active safety goodies — standard across the lineup and including blind-spot monitoring, automatic emergency braking, and adaptive cruise control, among other bits and bobs — works well. In fact, it’s one of the smarter and better-tuned systems out there, particularly with how the adaptive cruise control behaves. But the new lane-centering function, exclusive to the Premier, needs some better calibration as it tends to ping-pong you across the lane you’re in. The Premier also adds a front-facing camera, but the display is fairly low-res and kind of useless on something that’s already easy enough to maneuver. A proper 360-degree camera would be more useful.
The seventh-generation Legacy doesn’t stray from Subaru’s tried-and-true formula, proving you don’t automatically need an SUV if you want something spacious, comfortable, safe, and capable in nasty weather. It’ll make many Subaru loyalists happy, but the hood-scoop aficionado in me wishes the Legacy GT had a little something extra to make it stand out. Perhaps with Hyundai, Kia, and even Toyota introducing spicy versions of their midsize sedans, we could see the Legacy spec.B return.
Ha! As if. Dare to dream.
