Subaru Outback review

Being a proper estate car, the Outback majors on practicality. There’s plenty of space in all five seats plus a giant, rubber-lined 561-litre boot. And that jumps up to a remarkable 1,822 litres with the seats folded if you don’t spec a sunroof. Impressive. 

If you go for the base-spec Limited trim you’ll get fabric seats, while the mid-range and off-roady Field gets hard-wearing, water-repellent synthetic leather and the top-spec Touring gets proper Nappa leather. All of those seats (both front and rear) are heated in all trim levels though, and all get a leather-wrapped steering wheel. 

The dash is dominated by an 11.6-inch portrait touchscreen that’s actually more reactive than you might think, but there are some good chunky physical buttons too. There’s also wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the sound quality from the optional Harman Kardon 11-speaker audio system is very strong indeed.

Our main bugbear on the inside of the Outback would be with the Driver Monitoring System. It can apparently recognise the faces of five different drivers and remembers things like your seating position and climate preferences. Sounds great, but as soon as you get in the car you get a strange, Mission Impossible-style scanning face graphic that does feel a bit intrusive.