Cool Concepts: 1995 Subaru Streega

We take a closer look at the Subaru Streega concept, which became the blueprint for the Forester.

Image: Subaru

For many of us, 1995 doesn’t feel like that long ago, but when looking at the current shape of our world, it seems like the dark ages. The Internet was a primordial entity that could only display information and devoured your telephone’s land line (remember those?) in a screeching, hissing data stream; our shopping, socialising, and work were all done in person, and our cars were decidedly analogue. In fact, this was an age before SUVs were really a thing. Back then, they accounted for around 12% of the vehicles on the road. Admittedly, this figure had been on the rise since the 1980s but few could imagine that in the space of 30 years, SUVs would account for around 50% of car sales globally.

While folks at the time were drawn to the rugged, practical, lifestyle-oriented appeal of SUVs, the offerings of the time were anything but pleasant to drive. Most were developed with off-road durability, rather than round-town comfort, in mind and were often underpinned by tough, but unyielding ladder-frame chassis and live-axle suspension setups that sullenly swayed and pogoed around the urban settings to which they were so ill-suited.

Image: Subaru

Subaru already had a reputation for building sturdy, utilitarian vehicles (its first AWD car being the 1300G station wagon, back in 1971) and was making a name for itself in rallying with the Legacy and Impreza, and it was with the latter in mind that it adopted a school of thought on SUVs that was a brilliantly simple masterstroke – place an outdoor-lifestyle-friendly SUV body on the chassis of its capable, rally-honed road cars: a product that would combine the go-anywhere ability of the former with the good road manners and deft handling of the latter. The result was the 1995 Streega concept.

While not as outlandish as most concepts – perhaps the most out-there feature was its CRT-screen navigation system – it was nonetheless groundbreaking for the time. The bodywork incorporated a spacious cabin, with a large boot, a generous glasshouse for good all-round visibility and short, off-road-friendly overhangs. The fully independent front and rear suspension was borrowed from the Legacy – known for its plush ride – and raised to 200 mm courtesy of spacers on top of the struts. The Legacy also donated its permanent AWD system, four-speed automatic transmission and traction control systems to the Streega, while power was provided by a version of the Impreza’s 2.0-litre flat-four petrol engine with 184 kW and 309 N.m on tap.

The Streega would become the blueprint for the Forester that would follow in 1997, and its simple but effective combination of on-and off-road traits would help to shape the more road-friendly SUVs that have since gone on to dominate our automotive landscape.

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