2022 subaru outback wilderness edition Test drive offroad

2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness, has let loose a new subbrand—Wilderness—for the outdoorsy type. It’s all about the subbrand. Way back in the early &when Subaru was conjuring its 1995 models, it jacked up the Legacy station wagon and added some body cladding and two-tone affectations to create the Outback. It was a new subbrand of the Legacy. Now, oh so many years later, long after the Legacy part of its name has faded away, the Outback just isn&Outback-ish enough for overlanders, boondockers, and KOA habitués. So for 2022, Subaru introduces the even more Outbacky Outback: the Outback Wilderness. Subaru showed the Wilderness model to journalists in Southern California, where it crawled up on a rock pile. But we weren&allowed to drive it. The package includes many of the modifications overlanding Outback owners are already making, but it executes them with factory polish and some crash-tested peace of mind. So the suspension is sent skyward 0.8 inch to produce a total of 9.5 inches of ground clearance. Compared with the normal Outback, the front approach angle improves from 18.6 degrees to a full 20.0, the ramp break-over angle goes from 19.4 to 21.2 degrees, and the departure angle jumps from 21.7 to 23.6 degrees. Those are good numbers for what is still a unibody car with a raised suspension. And that 9.5 inches isn’t too far from the 9.7 inches that the Jeep Wrangler Sport offers on its standard tires. But the Wrangler Sport four-door’s 41.4-degree approach, 20.3-degree...