Subaru tapped into a huge market in the 80’s by putting a capable 4WD drive train on a car based platform. It offered a great balance between capable off-road driving and on road practicality. Their years of sales success with all wheel drive cars has proved that they were really on to something. If you need any further evidence that the early Subarus were solid cars, check out this guy’s crazy lifted 4×4 Touring Wagon. He clears some pretty gnarly hill climbs that most people wouldn’t try in full blown trucks.

This is a vintage Subaru instructional/promotional video from the same YouTube user who posted the “Getting Through” Vintage Toyota Offroad Instructional Video. What makes this interesting is that it comes from the era where Subaru first started offering cars with four wheel drive in order to provide a flexible vehicle that can drive on and off-road. This video shows off their 80’s Australian lineup and provides a guide to what the Subarus can do off-road. Keep in mind that the customers they were targeting were used to doing some pretty hardcore wheeling in trucks on the rough terrain and unpaved roads of the Outback. The video does a pretty good job of showing the benefits of a car based 4WD platform for on the tarmac, in snow and on high speed gravel roads while making very few compromises when doing true off-road driving. You could even say that this video is the essence of the Subaru brand.