Just like many other automakers (one stark exception was Stellantis, for example) active in the US automotive market, Subaru of America ended 2023 with total sales registering a positive development.
The tally jumped 13.6 percent after 17 consecutive months of sales increases, and the company wrapped 2023 with 57,764 vehicles sold in December (+1.8%) and 632,086 vehicle deliveries for the entirety of 2023. Although it still has passenger cars in its roster, the best performers were – as always – the crossover SUVs – namely the Outback, Crosstrek, and Forester, with 162k, 159k, and more than 152k units delivered to customers.
Curiously, only the flagship ascent registered a negative performance, and instead, all other nameplates were quite eager to leave the dealer lots. Even the Impreza, WRX, and BRZ were up to snuff! That means there's still a lot of love for the Subie brand, even though it's only coming with a couple of novelties during the first part of the year – the all-new sixth-generation 2025 Forester and the 2024 WRX TR. However, some people would love to see Subaru return to being active in one particular segment that was recently reborn.
More precisely, America saw the revival of the compact pickup truck sector with the arrival of the Hyundai Santa Cruz and the subsequent introduction of the Ford Maverick. The love is quite profound, as far as consumers are concerned, by the way – Ford's Maverick outsold the Santa Cruz almost three-to-one last year, and there was even some internal competition because the Maverick Hybrid was above the F-150 PowerBoost sibling.
Naturally, that makes everyone susceptible to believing that more automakers will soon join North America's unibody compact pickup truck party. While GM clearly has no intentions of bringing the South American Chevrolet Montana to the local market, the same cannot be said about the Brazil-made Ram Rampage, which is slated to arrive in the US, according to the rumor mill.
By the way, the latter has even more fish to fry at the CGI barbeque. As such, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators is ready and willing to believe that Toyota or Subaru – or maybe even both – will start bringing back some of their long-lost nameplates to fight the hordes of Mavericks. As such, some think that it's possible to see Toyota revive the iconic Stout light truck, while others would love to see the Subaru BRAT or Baja make the jump out of retirement.
The good folks over at the 'A1 Cars' channel on YouTube aim to daze and amaze the audience with a potential styling of their vision for the revived Subie Baja, and the resident pixel master is using some AI assistance to make the reborn unibody compact pickup truck rugged yet stylish at the same time – it has full-width LED light bars front and back, a muscular appearance, and also a hypothetical electrified powertrain to compete with the Ford Maverick Hybrid on equal, sustainable footing.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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