IndiaAIFounders — Junkyard Find: 2013 Subaru Outback with Manual Transmission

If you walk into a North American Subaru showroom today, you'll find that their only new vehicles available with three pedals are the BRZ and the WRX. In the not-so-distant past, though, the U.S.-market Outback could be purchased with a six-speed manual. I found one of the final examples of that powertrain rig in a Denver-area car graveyard last spring.

The fourth-generation Outback, sold in North America for the 2010 through 2014 model years was quite a bit bigger and more SUV-like than its predecessor.

Outback sales in the United States had been strong for the previous (2005-2009) generation, and they got even better when the interior space and ground clearance increased.

Here in Denver, I have a neighbor who bought a 2007 Outback and loved it more than any vehicle she'd ever owned. In 2010, her car got totaled, and she called up her friendly Subaru dealer that day and ordered up a replacement Outback … without bothering to test-drive or even look at the new version first. She was disappointed by how bulky and hard-to-park her new car was, but came to like— or at least tolerate— it well enough that she gave up on her buyer's-remorse idea of finding a good used '09.

Meanwhile, my wife loves her second-generation Legacy Outback (bought new in 2003) so much that a replacement is out of the question. Thanks to my Sambar, we have a two-Subaru household.

Our Outback has a five-speed manual, which helps with fuel economy and snow driving but enrages the employees at the Air Care Colorado smog-check stations (who often must call in a manual-certified specialist from headquarters in order to put the car on the roller dyno; the same employees insist on placing my LS400's front wheels on the 2WD rollers, because it looks like it should be a front-wheel-drive car regardless of what the idiot owner keeps telling them, and only switch to the rear wheels after driving it off the rollers a half-dozen times).

The second-generation Outback was the last sold in the U.S. market with a significant number of buyers taking the manual transmission. Many of those did so because the automatic cost $800 more ($1,447 when converting from 2004 dollars to 2026 dollars) than the base manual on the four-cylinder version; the H6-equipped cars were automatic-only.

Still, enough American Outback buyers preferred manuals to automatics in the years to come that Subaru of America continued to offer them, while charging quite a bit more for an automatic in the cheaper models. All four-cylinder 2005-2009 Outbacks sold here (except for a couple of the higher-zoot trim levels) had five-speed manuals as base equipment.

For the U.S.-market 2010-2014 Outbacks, the manuals are so rare that even most Subaru aficionados don't believe they exist. It took me three years of searching junkyards to find this car.

In Japan, Subaru still offers kei vans with manual transmissions, though it appears that the Chiffon just went all-CVT. The base 2026 Subaru Sambar Van, with its MSRP of ¥1,270,500 (about $8,083 at today's exchange rate) still has a five-speed manual transmission. Sadly for those of us who daily-drive real Subaru kei vans, both the Chiffon and Sambar are now badge-engineered trucks made by Daihatsu, i.e., Toyota.

Now we'll take a closer look at today's Junkyard Find. It was built in Indiana, like all 2013 Outbacks sold in the United States.

It's a base 2.5i, with an MSRP of $23,495. That's about $42,497 in 2026 dollars.

The engine is a 2.5-liter DOHC FB25B, rated at 173 horsepower and 174 lb-ft of torque.

An AM/FM/CD radio with Bluetooth and USB-based iPod connectivity was standard equipment, as was air conditioning (but not a power driver's seat).

It has some minor body damage and the interior doesn't seem too bad. My guess is that some expensive mechanical problem cropped up and a 13-year-old base-grade non-truck with too many pedals and too few cylinders just didn't have the resale value to seem worth fixing.

2013 Subaru Outback 6MT in Colorado wrecking yard.

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