| Road Test Subaru B9 Tribeca SE5 |
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Joining The Battle
Whatever the merits of the big Subaru - and there are several, as we'll see - this is a tough call. The X5 and the XC90 in particular will appeal to people who like the idea of being associated with BMW and Volvo badges respectively, and who might be difficult to persuade into anything else. It probably doesn't help Subaru's cause that the name chosen for the US market has been brought across the Atlantic. An American buyer will instantly recognise "Tribeca" as the name of an upmarket district in New York, but I bet not many British people make the connection. First time I read the word I wondered if it referred to some obscure shape known only to high-level geometrists, and for all the resonance it has in the UK I suppose it might as well have done. Behind the badge, there's a lot about the Tribeca that we've seen before. Both the three-litre engine and the five-speed automatic transmission are also found in the Legacy Spec.B, though the gear ratios in the latter have been revised to suit a large SUV rather than a sporty saloon/estate. This is, as we've found so many times in the past, a stonker of an engine, partly because it performs so well and partly because of its flat-six boxer layout. Subaru offers a key statistic to demonstrate the advantage this engine gives - the Tribeca has a much higher ground clearance than the BMW X5 (213mm versus 180mm), but the centre of gravity is significantly lower (640mm for the Subaru, 679mm for the BMW).
The effect is immediately apparent on the road. Although the Tribeca is very tall, it doesn't feel like it on corners. Hustle this car through some twisty stuff and it feels like a scaled-up and slightly less precise Legacy. And the Legacy is so good in these situations that it's to the Tribeca's credit that it can reasonably be talked about in the same sentence.
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