Driving the 2015 Subaru Outback, the sleepy adventurer

I’ve reached that age where all my friends are married, having kids, and replacing their cramped sports cars for sedate family haulers. They all seem to be getting Subarus too—like my good friend who embraced momhood and swapped her unruly Lancer Evo VIII for a 2013 Outback. As a single guy who cares little for practical considerations like rear headroom, it’s still a foreign world, and when Subaru invited me for a test drive of the all-new 2015 model, I wondered if I could grasp why people become fanatical about these things. Off-roading through the forests and snaking through the hills of Bend, Oregon, to some extent, I have.

One journalist aptly described the Outback as the Swiss-army knife of cars. A jack of many trades, it’s not a car that wins you over with its style, or even necessarily how it drives. The Outback has never been the boulevard head-turner, and while the combination of the black plastic cladding and clean lines give it a utilitarian look that’s more distinctive than the Legacy, the crossover looks best caked in a thin sheet of dirt and dust. Stepping inside I noticed a substantial upgrade in finish; even if the wood is sourced from fake plastic trees and metallic touches are all simulated, it’s hard to tell without scrutinizing them up close. The newer crop of Mazdas such as the CX-5 look more upscale, however.

Starting my drive on paved roads that traverse the rolling hills, I realized it’s not the best driver’s crossover either. Whether opting for the 175 hp 2.5-liter or the 256 hp 3.6-liter, neither are rewarding to wring out with their flat torque and whiny engine note. At least the CVT (which is all you get) admirably mimics a standard transmission and doesn’t drone at a constant rpm, but it’s not as engaging as rowing your own gears, or as snappy as a dual-clutch setup, even with the high-torque CVT in the 3.6, which is also used in the WRX. On the country roads the Outback showed higher grip and quicker steering compared to the previous gen, and it’s got the same active torque vectoring from the STI, but the body roll gently reminds you to treat it as a cruiser.

Then again, if you’re lugging a pair of kayaks on the roof, you wouldn’t be flogging it like a Lotus Elise anyway. To that end, it’s a comfortable road-trip car. Although not as supple and well sorted as a Honda Accord Crosstour (hopelessly ugly yet underrated), it’s luxury-car quiet when cruising on the highway, and you only hear the faint hum of its all-season tires and hushed noise of the wind gliding over the windshield.

The docile if not sleepy road manners transferred to the off-road portion as well. Thanks in part to the 8.7 inches of clearance, it crossed muddy ruts and poorly maintained trails as though I were on a routine trip to Whole Foods for organic kale. The Outback showed no signs of struggling through dirt, rock or gravel; the symmetrical AWD always sent just the right amount of power to the appropriate tire, and it never bogged down or scraped the bottom.

During lunch break, I chatted with one of our guides that accompanied our Subaru caravan, who was a former park ranger for the Californian Eastern Sierras. Being a huge fan of creek and river fishing, we talked about our favorite secret fishing holes in the Inyo National Forest. Getting back in the Outback, my thoughts wandered off to driving the Subie up a trail in the Golden Trout Wilderness, and doing a day-hike to a secluded creek.

That’s when it hit me: the allure of the Outback isn’t seen in how we typically critique cars, of whether it’s the most entertaining to drive or stare at. But there’s a comfortable certainty and security to everything it does, a versatility that emboldens you to dream of an adventure that you’d normally deem too risky. Sure, most buyers wouldn’t venture much further than their local Pottery Barn, but like the 3-Series owners who plod around suburbia driving their ultimate driving machine like a Camry, it’s the possibility that appeals. A minivan for those who loathe minivans, it caters to those who refuse to fully surrender to the drudgery of domesticity.

The alternatives also don’t have that combination of ruggedness, practicality and reliability, and it occupies a niche uniquely its own -- a Jeep Wrangler would be too impractical for daily driving; a Ford Edge or Toyota Venza wouldn’t be as adept on the trail; a Grand Cherokee too hungry for fuel compared to the 20 city / 27 highway mpg with the six-cylinder Outback (25 city / 33 highway for the four-cylinder). Outbacks are becoming the modern Volvo 240 wagon -- 97% of Outbacks sold in the last ten years are still on the road, and aided by tech such as the the updated EyeSight system (which can react and brake up to a 30 mph speed difference), they’re also one of the safest.

But why not the smaller, lighter Forester, which is just as off-road capable with its X-Mode traction control? Personally I’d prefer that over the Outback due to its more nimble characteristics, and SUV-esque profile. But it boils down to one thing: space. At the end of press event, I sat in the back with two other adults while driving back to the lodge on a rocky trail, and we surprisingly had wiggle room to spare.

For my nesting friends, that’s enough to make the Outback a winner.