Is it weird that Subaru has never returned to the ute game? We reckon it is.
The old Subaru Brumby is fondly remembered immensely well regarded here in Australia, and our mate Theo has taken a few swings at imagining how a new generation of it might look.
Most recently (above), he's turned the new small Impreza hatch into a unibody Brumby, just as it should be, along with a bigger Forester-based version that could really go either way: Brumby or... Baja.
Now, Theo's pushed the Baja idea further with his most unique effort yet, creating a bespoke full-size Subaru Baja ute with a proper ladder-frame cab-chassis body.
Check it out below!
You can easily imagine this new Baja ute sharing its architecture with the next-generation Toyota HiLux, just as the Isuzu D-Max and Mazda BT-50 are related, as are the Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok.
Will it happen, though? It's unlikely, given Subaru's generally smaller scale and overall family focus, but it could nonetheless be a fruitful and affordable approach to entering the competitive ute market.
After all, there's already the Subaru BRZ, which is closely tied to the Toyota GR86 across two generations of the two-door sports car, along with the related Solterra and BZ4x EVs.
A HiLux-based Subaru ute would be unlikely to have much of the iconic quirky character that Brumby and Baja fans have loved, but it could prove a welcome sales booster for the star-badged brand.
Of course... it might only take a paint job and some silver cladding to sort that out...
COMMENTS