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Set to hit New Zealand roads and skifield access trails around September, the next-generation Subaru Outback seems content to cover familiar ground.
And why not? The original Outback, effectively no more than a jacked up Legacy wagon on stilts, effectively started the whole soft-roader trend.
It became a winner, and the current version that followed, though a little more sophisticated, has done even better around the globe. Indeed, more than half of all Legacy wagons sold in North America last year were Outbacks.
There's no great secret to the recipe. Subaru simply imagined there were a lot of people around who wanted to own a vehicle that had something of the tough image of a bone fide off-roader, but had no real intention of heavy-duty bush-bashing.
All the same, thanks to Subaru's formidable four-wheel-drive engineering, a hill-holder clutch, low-range gearbox and innovative symmetrical all-wheel-drive system, the Outback was also a capable mud-plugger.
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