Junkyard Gem: 2002 Subaru Outback H6-3.0 Sedan

Since the 2005 model year, the Subaru Outback has been a model in its own right, a Legacy-based wagon or (starting in 2010) crossover with ancestry stretching directly back to the 1990 Legacy all-wheel-drive wagon. Such wasn’t always the case for the Outback name, however; Subaru sold Impreza Outbacks here from the 1995 through 2000 model years, and Legacy Outback sedans were sold for the 2000 through 2004 model years. Not many were sold, but Coloradans love Subarus more than most people and I’ll see just about every Subaru model in the local yards at some point. Here’s a rare H6-powered 2002 model, found in a yard between Denver and Cheyenne recently.

This generation of Subaru Outback was still a Legacy, officially speaking, but there were no Legacy badges on the exteriors of these cars after 1999.

Subaru sold an outdoorsy Legacy sedan here prior to 2000, but it was called the Legacy SUS (Sport Utility Sedan). Every new Subaru sold in the United States had all-wheel-drive as standard equipment beginning in the 1996 model year.

Subaru developed a boxer-six engine for the Alcyone (sold here as the XT/XT6 and, later, as the SVX) back the middle 1980s, and a 3.0-liter version became available in the Legacy Outback starting in the 2001 model year. This one was rated at 212 horsepower and 210 pound-feet.

Subaru didn’t have a transmission that could handle all that torque at the time, so all the H6 Outbacks (and every other H6-powered Subaru ever sold in North America, for that matter) came with automatic transmissions. Plenty of SVX owners have done manual swaps into their cars by now, of course.

The MSRP on this car was $27,995, or about $47,713 in 2023 dollars. The extra-loaded Outback VDC sedan listed at $30,395 ($51,803 in today’s money). If you wanted a new 2002 Audi Allroad Quattro with automatic transmission, the price started at $40,950 ($69,792 today).