The new 2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness brings a new off-road flavor and capability to the brand’s often called station wagon, giving it some genuine credibility and swagger to bring to the rougher trails.
With a heavy duty suspension and a lift of nearly and inch, the Outback Wilderness sports a class-leading 9.5-inch ground clearance to go with its new 17-inch matte black wheels white-letter Geolandar off-road tires.
It gets all-new front bumper fascia with a bolder hexagonal grille and LED hex fog lights. A matte black sticker on the hood and front skid plate beef up its brawny persona further. Functional is a more substantial fixed ladder-type roof rack system that can hold up to 700 pounds and anodized copper-finish tow hook anchor point covers.
Larger wheel arch trims along with black window trim round out the new look along with Subaru Wilderness badges sides and rear.
The cabin sports plenty of the Wilderness logo goodness and carries through a number of the exterior’s anodized copper-finish accents on the steering wheel, shifter and instrument cluster. Copper colored accent stitching is seen throughout with seating upholstered in Subaru StarTex water-repellant materials.
Beautiful floor liners front and rear keep the mud and dirt at bay. Under the rubber lined rear cargo floor is a standard full-size tire to giving your confidence out in the wild. When open at night, the power lift-gate features a bright LED spotlight too.
Center stage is the new Starlink 11.6-inch portrait style infotainment system which integrates control for multimedia, HVAC, X-MODE, and vehicle settings. Multiple camera views can be summoned including a front-view. On the screen an X-Mode display features a roll-angle graphic and others to assist when off-roading.
To make all this possible, it has longer shocks and springs front and rear to provide nearly 1-inch additional ground clearance and suspension travel. Along with redesigned front and rear bumpers, it has an improved approach angle of 20 degrees , breakover angle of 21.2 degrees, and a departure angle of 23.6 degrees.
While crawl ratio isn’t part of the conversation here, a lower final drive ratio of 4.44:1 and recalibrated the Lineartronic CVT (continuously variable transmission) help to improve low speed climbing abilities. An expanded array of X-Mode software programs is along for the ride as well to manage its active torque vectoring and vehicle dynamics control.
Powering the Outback Wilderness is the brand’s 2.4-liter turbocharged “boxer” engine delivers with 260 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque. The CVT features an 8-speed manual mode function with steering wheel paddle shifters that can give you software induces simulated “shifts”.
In all, the 2022 Subaru Wilderness has an EPA fuel economy rating of 22 mpg city and 26 mpg highway and can tow up to 3,500 pounds. Pricing will be announced later this year closer to its fall on-sale date.
