2004 Subaru Forester All Wheel Drive on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Custom cabinetry gives this Subaru Outback camper cred

Where there's space, there's wood to make it more functional. At least, that seems to be the ethos at customization shop Solid Wood Worx. The Huntington Beach, Calif.-based company has turned vehicles such as the Ram ProMaster, Nissan XTerra, Toyota 4Runner, and Ford F-250 into small, livable mobile homes. The most recent project is a Subaru Outback, which uses a unique series of cabinets to meet a fairly complex checklist of asks.  Noticed by Motor1, the Outback belongs to an adventurer named Sean who is setting out on a six-month climbing trip. She reached out to Brian, a woodworker and former cabinet builder, at Solid Wood Worx with her vision of the Outback as a sleep-in camper. She wanted a flat place where she and her 80-pound dog could sleep, a slide-out kitchen with stove and fridge, storage for climbing gear, storage for clothes, and a designated space for a water supply. Possibly the biggest ask was an integrated solar panel with a battery and inverter for off-the-grid living. Brian made it all work.  With the solar panel and spare tire hitched to the Thule roof rack and out of the way, Brian built an interior platform that stretched from the rear hatch to the back of the front seats. Since this eliminated any use of the rear seats, they were taken out. The platform itself has built-in drawers, and the upper portion is split into two functional spaces. The right side has just enough room to fit a small mattress, but Sean looks small, so it should work perfectly. Beneath the bed is the sliding drawer that stows the camp stove. On the left side is a massive amount of storage that doubles as secondary kitchen prep space. On top of that is a small fridge that opens on top like a cooler.  With the kitchen area in its "out" position, a secondary panel opens up to the space where the spare tire used to be. Inside that, Brian's team fitted the wiring, fuses and equipment for the solar panel's battery storage. For this project, Brian used a 100 amp-hour battery and a 100-watt solar kit from Renogy. That power feeds an inverter, a few USB plugs, and the small fridge. Looking through the rear passenger door, there are even more storage spaces for things such as clothes, bedding, shoes, and a laptop. The water tank slides in behind the front seat.  In most of his builds, Brian uses three-quarter-inch nine-ply pine plywood that he gets from Home Depot. It costs roughly $35 for a 4x8 sheet, and each piece weighs about 60 pounds.

Subaru posts 15.7% rise in fill-year operating profit

TOKYO — Subaru on Monday posted a 15.7% rise in annual operating profit in the fiscal year that ended in March as it recovered from a raft of product recalls last year, but warned that sales of its cars would take a hit from the coronavirus outbreak. Profit rose to 210.3 billion yen ($1.96 billion) for the year just ended, from 181.7 billion yen a year earlier under international financial reporting standards. It exceeded a consensus estimate of 204.7 billion yen profit drawn from 17 analysts polled by Refinitiv. Global automakers are struggling to recover from the coronavirus, which has pummeled car sales as shelter-in-place orders in many countries clobbered car demand, while plant workers had been left unable to commute to work. Though Subaru and its rivals have begun to restart vehicle factories, anaemic demand, supply chain disruption and social distancing measures at factories are expected to limit output in the coming months. "We saw a limited impact of the coronavirus on our results for the year just ended," Chief Executive Tomomi Nakamura told a teleconference. "But although we have resumed production this month, we are only operating one shift in Japan, and the pace of U.S. output has slowed significantly ... we see many uncertainties related to the virus." As a result, the maker of the Outback and Forester SUV crossovers declined to give an earnings forecast for the current business year, while it slashed its year-end dividend for the year just ended by 61% to 28 yen per share. Some analysts believe industry-wide global auto sales could slump by a third this year and that any recovery will be slow and patchy as job losses and reduced incomes weigh on consumer spending. Subaru, which earns two-thirds of its vehicle sales from the United States, acknowledged that it may take a hit in the coming months as its biggest market struggles get the coronavirus pandemic under control. The automaker saw a 3% rise in global vehicle sales in the year to March to 1.03 million units, bouncing back from last year, when a defective steering component and measures to improve inspection tests had stopped output for two weeks at its sole assembly plant in Japan. The process to restart its U.S. plants would take time, Subaru said, and it expects to produce only around 5,000 units this month, a fraction of last year's 40,000. The virus would result in a global production hit of around 150,000 units, it added.

2022 Honda Civic Si, Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring | Autoblog Podcast #708

This episode of the Autoblog Podcast features Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore and News Editor Joel Stocksdale. They talk about cars they've been driving, including the 2022 Honda Civic Si, 2022 Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring plug-in hybrid and 2022 Subaru Ascent. After that, they spend someone's money. The subject specifically is whether a Ford Maverick is right for the person, or if they should maybe get something else. Autoblog Podcast #708 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown What we're driving2022 Honda Civic Si 2022 Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring 2022 Subaru Ascent Spend my money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.