This Legacy discards some of the visual lineage shared by the four previous generations. The bodywork at the windows’ bottom edge has, for 20 years, scored a flat line from the A-pillars right through to the body’s rear edge, which itself has previously featured blackened D-pillars to give an impression of a floating roof and enhance a sense of length and elegance.
But these elements have been banished from this fifth-generation car, and similarly we are slightly sorry to see, two years on from the Impreza doing the same, the abandonment of frameless windows.
Instead, there’s something ‘me too’ and somehow less sophisticated about the lines of the latest Legacy, whose D-pillars are now body coloured and curve around the rear window line like myriad other estates, and whose wheel arches are marked by prominent bulges in the fashion of the Mazda 6 and Ford Mondeo. The Legacy is still far from being an inelegant car, but we’re unconvinced that it’s a step forward from the relative individuality of the previous models.
Under the skin, at least, the Legacy’s hardware rather more closely resembles the specification we’ve come to expect. Permanent, symmetrical four-wheel drive is standard, generally split 50/50 between the axles in normal driving but with a viscous centre differential to apportion power to the end that needs it most.
Suspension is by MacPherson struts at the front, revised on this model specifically so that the lower arm is located on a subframe rather than to the body to reduce noise, vibration and harshness and to improve steering precision (the rack is also subframe mounted). There are double wishbones at the rear, and again the locating points are all on a subframe, as are the rear differential’s.
The latest Legacy is offered in the UK with only two engine options, both four-cylinder boxers: a 2.5-litre petrol mated to a CVT, and the 2.0-litre diesel with a six-speed manual, as tested here.
