Subaru B9 Tribeca: Subaru's Piggy Faced SUV Succumbs to Pressure from the Design Police

The ugly duckling of the Subaru range (a title seemingly under threat from the new Impreza, if recent shots circulating on the internet are anything to go by), the B9 Tribeca, and its much maligned exterior design, have gone under the cosmetic surgeons knife at the behest of the design police, duly resulting in the facelifted 2008 model Subaru Tribeca, due to be launched at today's New York International Auto Show. It would appear that the B9 nomenclature has been dropped for the new model, as have the previous model's quirky front and rear aspects - the front end having been squared-off with a more neo-con Forester-inspired look.

Subaru Tribecas:

Past (2007 B9 Tribeca)...


...and present (newly launched 2008 Tribeca)

While earlier incarnations of Subaru's B9 Tribeca were widely acclaimed for their interior design, the original car's exterior styling received few plaudits; the Tribeca's challenging front-end treatment often leading to the B9 being lumped together with other aberrations of automotive design, such as Pontiac's Aztec and the vast majority of product from Korean firm, Ssangyong; her po-faced mien becoming the butt of many a hack’s comic musings. Although Subaru’s outgoing corporate façade, with its prominent central snout flanked on either side by rakish wing-like grilles, succeeded in lifting the strangely compelling R1 – one of Subaru’s petite offerings in the Japanese kei-car market – above the mundane, this piggish visage translated less successfully to larger models as it gradually infiltrated the Subaru range, the corporate proboscis finding itself awkwardly grafted to the front of the Impreza, before ultimately ending its life in ever more embellished form on the front of the flagship Tribeca.

Evolution of the species:

Subaru's corporate snout, from diminutive R1...


...through Impreza...


...to the 2007 model B9 Tribeca.

However, to seemingly discourage the world’s automotive press from continued sniggering at the Tribeca’s expense, and to placate those potential customers of a more staid disposition, who may otherwise have been dissuaded from purchasing the car in its earlier flamboyantly eccentric configuration, Subaru have extensively reworked the exterior styling of their SUV offering for the 2008 model year. The result is a resounding coup for the forces of conservatism with all traces of the profligate idiosyncrasy – swooping curves, challenging creases, oddly positioned headlights, imposing grille – of the previous model having been quashed, all intimations of underlying character replaced by the prosaically generic. The most pronounced changes are to be found at the front of the vehicle, where the now infamous Subaru snout has been replaced with a nondescript grille – an enlarged version of the new Subaru corporate grimace, as already seen on the Japanese market Stella, and the new Impreza – which looks as though it could have already seen prior service on any number of identikit Korean vehicles from the late 90s and early 00s. The frontal visage has been further diluted by the addition of yet more unassuming Forester-derived features which aim to give the car a more aggressive, squared-off look, and all but eradicate the charisma formerly exhibited by the outgoing Tribeca’s engaging, if controversial, frontal detailing. Meanwhile, the Tribeca’s hindquarters have also been remodelled, with remedial cosmetic work straightening out a once curvaceous posterior, raising the position of the number plate, and softening the once prominent crease which formerly circumnavigated the car’s rump.

Subaru's New Corporate Look

The Stella (Japanese market "Kei" car)

The New Impreza Hatchback

Changes for the 2008 model Tribeca, currently scheduled to go on sale this summer, are not however solely limited to the realm of the aesthetic. The Tribeca’s boxer engine has been enlarged from 3-litres to 3.6-litres for the new model year, and the new power unit is also set to feature Dual AVCS (Active Valve Control System), which promises increased torque across the rev range. As is to be expected from a vehicle with a widely lauded interior design philosophy, inwardly little has changed for 2008, bar the addition of a second lever, on the driver’s side of the vehicle, to move the central row of seats forward and facilitate access to the rearmost passenger seats. Meanwhile, revisions to the seat mechanism itself, now mean that much less effort is required to manoeuvre the Tribeca’s central row of seats back and forth. The final modification of note comes in the form of new bushes for the rear suspension which have been designed to offer improved comfort and ride-quality.

The largely unaltered interior of the 2008 Tribeca

With these and a raft of other tweaks finding their way onto the 2008 model Tribeca, the new car is destined to be every inch the accomplished vehicle its forebear was. It is difficult, however, not to be disappointed by the overarchingly commonplace stylistic mutations, which have tempered the eccentric individuality of the pre-facelift Tribeca, and robbed her of her singular character. While the retiring B9 Tribeca could never have been described as a thing of automotive beauty, she nonetheless exuded a certain sense of occasion and a defiant, unorthodox charm, duly maintaining the lengthy Subaru tradition of producing offbeat, challenging designs, as established by cars such as the XT, and the Giugiaro-penned SVX. Her successor, the 2008 model Tribeca, however, merely blends in with the amorphous automotive landscape.