SUBARU LEGACY 3.0 R 4dr Seq Auto (2003)

Subaru Legacy - Strong, dependable, comfortable. Recommended car.

Bit daft calling this thing 'Legacy', sort of makes it sound like it's a relic or something. It's dead modern though, looks the business and drives with all sorts of power. Now, the down side of that - especially as I got the 3 litre one - is high fuel cost. Trust me to but it a few years ago just as the fuel prices were sky rocketing. Now I'm really feeling that.

The Subaru Legacy is a good solid drive, although a bit more performance than you might at first be expecting from what can look like a slightly tame saloon car. Don't be fooled! Subaru make rally cars, and this bad boy has plenty of that blood in it. That also means it's very able over slippery stuff, either rain or loose surfaces.

I've had some friends tell me the Legacy looks a bit old hat inside, like the materials and plastics and things. Personally I think it looks a lot like the inside of a BMW 5 series, which I will admit is a smarter car all round, but my point is I don't think it looks old hat. There's more space inside as well I think, nice big storage box in between the front seats, big enough for a small coat actually.

There's some things I was impressed by but you might not be, depends what car you had before really. Like cruise control I thought was awesome, and a colour display in the dash for the satnav and stereo and so on. Heated seats as well, luxury! And it's got a built in DVD player. Actually I think that might start looking a bit old too soon, what with Blu-rays and ipods and what have you. Well I thought it was nice.

What might be a bit of a let down for people wanting a bit of a power car is that it's only got five gears. Now, personally I've never known anything more than that, and believe me the 3 litre engine along with 4x4 control really gives plenty of power, but if you're used to having the 6 then maybe that would be off-putting.

One particular down side on the Subaru Legacy is the boot space. It's alright, you'll get all your shopping in there and some other bits, but really I mean for a car that could be used as a family car, it's just pretty small. It's a lot slimmer than the overall width of the car, which is just odd. It's fairly good length ways, but not that deep, and overall tricky to properly use. You'd just about squeeze two sets of golf clubs in maybe, but with a bit of effort. That wouldn't be a problem if you got the estate mind.