Virtually Revived 2025 Subaru Baja Small Truck Feels Ready for a Maverick Rumble

Earlier this year, they introduced the 2024 Subaru BRZ tS with an STI-modded suspension, a few bespoke styling elements both inside and out, plus additional EyeSight Driver Assist Technology – and mixed with the purist promise of a six-speed manual transmission. Now, the next Subiefest event programmed on October 7 in Florida will also bring out the 2024 Subaru WRX TR with help from Travis Pastrana and Bucky Lasek.

That's all in good measure – we are glad the niche carmaker still caters to enthusiasts. But what about the regular lineup? Well, the latter also consists of the 2024 Impreza hatchback and 2024 Legacy sedan aside from the sports cars – and then all you have to choose from are crossover SUVs, the likes of Solterra (EV), 2024 Crosstrek, Forester, Outback, and Ascent.

Note that only the Subaru sibling to the Toyota bZ4X battery-powered electric compact crossover SUV is missing on the 2024 model year goodies, so a lot of folks might say the company is all set and ready to hit the dealerships with plenty of novelties. Ahem, that may be the case in the real world, but the imaginative realm of digital car content creators is a little more severe than that.

As such, some venues from the parallel universes of vehicular CGI have already proceeded to move on to the refreshed 2025 Subaru Ascent three-row mid-size crossover SUV, showing its new face from the digital mist, for example. On the other hand, others can only dream about cool revivals – such as bringing back the Subaru Baja AWD four-door utility truck for a new lease of virtual life.

This time around, though, it's not a four-door coupe utility anymore but rather a fully-fledged unibody compact pickup truck destined to clash with the Ford Maverick king of sales and the posh Hyundai Santa Cruz if it ever returns to life on the US car market. Of course, that's a big 'what if' according to everyday people – though not also the good folks behind PoloTo, which is a distinctively-named automotive news video channel on YouTube - and they also share visions of new models created with assistance from AI.

As such, their resident pixel master deployed the skills of AI software to help us imagine the possible variants of a rugged Subaru Baja revival as a four-door unibody compact pickup truck with enough rugged charm to persuade customers from shying away from the best-selling Maverick or the ritzy Santa Cruz. The former is pretty hard to dethrone, but it seems the virtual project here tries to hit the sweet spot between the Maverick's rugged charm and the Santa Cruz's crossover-like qualities – and in many different colors!