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The old Subaru Outback always looked like a wagon that had spent a summer at CrossFit \u2014 hunched, lifted, a little scruffy, ready to disappear down a fire road at a moment’s notice. The 2026 Outback, redesigned top to bottom, has clearly been to a tailor. It stands up straighter. Its shoulders are squarer. The roof is flatter and sits two inches higher than before.<\/p>\n
Whether that’s a gain or a loss depends on how attached you were to the old silhouette. I’m going to miss the slouch. But after a week in the Touring \u2014 the top of the non-turbo range, badged “Touring\/TDG” in Subaru-speak \u2014 I’ll admit the company has bought back most of what it gave up with the stuff you actually touch.<\/p>\n
Start with the dashboard. Gone is the vertical tablet that always looked like an afterthought. In its place, a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster and a 12.1-inch center touchscreen running Subaru’s new Android Automotive\u2013based software. It’s faster, prettier and better organized than anything Subaru has put in an Outback before. A shortcut bar across the top jumps between navigation, music and phone without a scavenger hunt. And hallelujah for this \u2014 Subaru has put physical knobs and buttons back below the screen for climate. You can adjust the temperature without taking your eyes off Colorado Boulevard.<\/p>\n
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The Touring’s cabin is where the redesign really lands. Subaru wraps everything in perforated Nappa leather and throws in a 12-way power driver’s seat with adjustable thigh support, ventilated front chairs and a panoramic moonroof that stretches most of the way to the second row. The back seat is the surprise: real headroom, generous legroom, and 34.6 cubic feet of cargo behind it \u2014 80.5 with the seats folded, more than Subaru’s own three-row Ascent offers.Under the hood is the naturally aspirated 2.5-liter flat-four, good for 180 horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque, routed through a CVT with eight programmed “gears” and paddles behind the wheel. That is not a lot of horsepower to move a nearly 3,800-pound SUV, and the Touring makes no secret of it. Around town, it’s fine. Merging onto the 210 in traffic requires more on-ramp than you’d guess, and passing a slow truck is a project you commit to well in advance.<\/p>\n
This is a genuinely quiet car; at 70 mph you notice the stereo instead of the tires. A new dual-pinion steering rack makes the front end feel more accurate and settles the car on center at speed. The brakes are lovely \u2014 firm at the top, easy to meter in stop-and-go. Pasadena’s manhole covers and post-storm potholes disappear beneath it without drama.<\/p>\n
Point it at dirt and the Outback still knows what it’s for. Ground clearance holds at 8.7 inches, X-Mode is standard with Snow, Deep Snow, Dirt and Mud settings, and tow rating on the 2.5 is 2,700 pounds. EPA fuel economy is 27 mpg combined.<\/p>\n
Safety is Subaru’s usual overdelivery: the newest EyeSight suite, DriverFocus attention monitoring, blind-spot and rear cross-traffic alerts, and \u2014 the Touring’s real headline \u2014 Highway Hands-Free Assist for hands-off cruising up to 85 mph on approved divided highways.<\/p>\n
So: is it still an Outback? Mostly. It has grown up, put on a jacket, learned to sit up straight and keep quiet at dinner. It has traded some of its scruffy personality for a lot more competence, comfort and cargo. If what you loved was the way it took your family, your dog and your gear anywhere you pointed it, the 2026 Touring does that job better than any Outback before it. It just does it in a nicer suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The old Subaru Outback always looked like a wagon that had spent a summer at CrossFit \u2014 hunched, lifted, a little scruffy, ready to disappear down a fire road at a moment’s notice. The 2026 Outback, redesigned top to bottom, has clearly been to a tailor. It stands up straighter. Its shoulders are squarer. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frontcolumn-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasadenanow.com\/wheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}