More bulky than its predecessor, the new Outback has a commanding presence on the road and ample interior space. Ground clearance has been increased to 213 mm, which is more than enough to deal with your average middelmannetjie. A serious 4x4 like the Toyota Prado is 220 mm high.
The version we drove was “satin white pearl” – the colour of the flashiest Hollywood smile. On the inside it feels like a plush family sedan with comfortable leather-clad seats.
The driver seat is easily adjustable for the perfect fit – upwards, forwards, backwards – but you don’t have quite the same commanding height as you would in an SUV.
You get the feeling that this car was built for the Northern Hemisphere, with large windows and a sunroof. It’s apparently great in snow, which isn’t really a priority in a place like Upington.

Subaru prides itself on safety, and when it comes to the Outback it has a lot to crow about. It’s got a five-star safe­ty rating from both ENCAP (Euro­pean New Car Assess­ment Pro­gramme) and ANCAP (Australasian Assess­­ment Programme).
Safety features include seven air bags (one of them a driver’s knee-bag), three-point seat­belts and head rests for all passengers, a re­inforced frame and Vehicle Dynamic Control (to prevent skidding).
It has selflevelling rear suspension, which means that no matter how heavily you load the vehicle or the trailer, the Outback remains level. And the permanent all-wheel drive makes it feel stable on the road.

You have to get used to a few things. The Outback works with a keyless system and has an electronic handbrake. To start the car, you push a knob with the remote control nearby. Similarly, to engage the handbrake, you push in a small lever to the right of the steering wheel (and pull it out gently again when you want to drive off). The manufacturer warns the system emits radio waves, which could also put the brakes on a pace­maker, so this counts out a few prospective buyers.

The three passenger seats in the back have ample leg room, and there’s a folddown armrest in the middle should you have only two passengers in the back. The back seats fold down on a 60/40 split, giving it a luggage area big enough to accommodate a whole-sheep-size cool box, several over­night bags and a week’s worth of padkos (1 690 ℓ). But if there are five passengers in the car, you might need to make use of the full-length roof rack (or hitch a trailer), as load capacity shrinks to 490 ℓ.
Without a handbrake to get in the way, the centre console between driver and passenger has loads of space for coffee cups and a deep storage compartment in the armrest to stash the biltong. Overhead, there’s a sunglasses compartment. The deep door pockets will hold your map book, digital camera and bird guide.

 
The Outback has three driving “modes”: Intelligent Drive (I), Sports (S) and Sports Sharp (S#), which you set by twiddling or depressing a knob to the left of the driver’s seat.
Intelligent Drive is meant for town driving or on slippery or looser surfaces. Sports is recommended for general driving conditions and S# is suggested for “sport-minded drivers”.

In practice, the car was most comfortable in Sports mode, but S# is handy for when you want to cruise past that big truck holding up the traffic on the road between Citrusdal and Clanwilliam.
Basically, it’s a bit like a digital camera: Choose the best setting for your purpose and let the car do the rest.

 
The manual advises that one should treat the Outback as a sedan that is capable on rougher roads, and not as an allterrain vehicle. In other words, you’re not going to get up Van Zyl’s Pass in Kaokoland, but there’s no need to steer clear of back roads, as the vehicle seems to relish corrugations, sand and gravel. It’s a perfect touring vehicle for places like the Kgalagadi or the back roads of the Karoo. But let’s face it, you’re hardly likely to tackle the wilds of Botswana in a vehicle that’s more computer than car.

You know how frustrating it is when the air con is too cold but your partner is “just fine”? Well, the Outback keeps everyone happy by offering “dual” climate control, which means that the passenger and the driver can set the temperatures separately to suit themselves.

The “liquid crystal” controls on the dashboard are easy on the eye – and there’s a little dial to the right of the steering wheel that allows you to adjust the lighting to suit you. You can also preset your seat so you don’t have to adjust it every time you get in the car.

For a large vehicle, the Outback is surprisingly fuelefficient. On a trip with varied driving conditions – heavy traffic, open road, gravel and tar – it used 10,2 ℓ/100 km. Not bad for its size.
If you use cruise control in Sports mode and stick to the speed limit, open-road fuel consumption is even better: On an uninterrupted stretch of 100 km at the speed limit it used only 7,8 ℓ.
An “eco gauge” on the display panel allows you to monitor consumption as you drive and indicates how much further you can go before you’ll need to fill up.

The Outback really comes into its own on the open road where you can turn on the cruise control, push the seat back and relax your knees. Another great feature is its LED headlights, which throw an enormous beam on either side of the road; you should be able to spot a bokkie well before it dashes across the road.

On a slow game drive you might wish to leave the seatbelt unclipped, but you’ll have to wait a full 108 seconds for the warning chime to stop. The black leatherwrapped steering wheel gets sticky in the heat, and the wood-grain trim inside the cabin seems unnecessarily fussy. But that’s really nitpicking. I guess this just leaves the price tag…

As a cross between a station wagon and an SUV, the Outback is in a class of its own, but it ranks as competitors the Audi A4 Avant (from R341 000), Volvo XC 70 (R485 000), BMW X3 (R493 500) and VW Touran (R343 500).