Hagerty | Revelations with Jason Cammisa. Episode 23: The XT was Subarus Attempt to Be Normal.

The 1985 Subaru XT 4WD Turbo was what happened when Subaru tried not to be weird. Honda had the Prelude, Toyota had the Celica, and Subaru had a problem — at the end of the malaise era, sports coupes were getting fun and fast. And Subaru didn’t have a car to compete with them. The company’s EA-series flat-four gradually got a turbocharger and overhead cams, and in the XT Turbo it made a full 111 hp. With AWD traction and a 5-speed manual, it got to 100 km/h in 10.2 seconds — which was genuinely quick for a Subaru. It had a coefficient of drag as low as , making it the most aerodynamic car sold in America. Looking back, the XT previewed many technologies and features common in today’s cars: height-adjustable air suspension, turbocharged four-cylinder engines, all-wheel drive, digital dashboards, a hill-holder feature, speed alarm, a focus on aerodynamics, trunk pass-through, trip computer, you name it! That preview was done, however, though the eyes of what was possible using 1980s technology, which automatically means it was a bit weird. And then, it was a Subaru, and Subarus were very weird. Very, very weird. And yet also very cool.