Even here in the sunny, suburban, temperate climes of Los Angeles, off-roady Subarus are everywhere. Nary a minute goes by without us seeing a Crosstrek or Outback, with more than half of those having been modded into Instagrammable overland-ready machines. Now Subaru, seeking to add even more dollars to its Scrooge McDuck-esque vault of money, is jumping on the trend by offering its own factory-built, factory-modified off-road wagon. You all know it as the Subaru Outback Wilderness.

As a refresher, the Outback originally began life as a slightly modified, slightly lifted, heavily be-plastic’ed variant of the Subaru Legacy wagon. As wagons fell out of favor in the US, Subaru kept on pushing the Outback into SUV-adjacent territory, and to great success. It’s practically tied with the Forester in terms of total units sold (the Outback sold only 100 fewer units comparatively in 2021), with the two wagons-cosplaying-as-SUVs comprising the bulk of Subaru’s sales.

And as it sits, the regular Outback, with its tall-ish ride height and standard all-wheel drive, provides more than enough off-road capability for most Americans. But as we’re Americans. We want more. We want our vehicles to project an image of ultimate capability. And we want the specs to back that image up. You know, for those times we’re trying to defend our purchasing decisions on the internet. And that’s where the Outback Wilderness comes in.

Subaru’s Outback Wilderness is a Legacy wagon with even more plastic cladding, even more ride height, and if we can drop our playful facetiousness for a minute, more capability.

Let’s start with the design, and more specifically, that cladding. It’s functional, with chunky bumpers expressly designed to take the beatings of the trail. These bumpers also work, alongside the taller 9.5-inches of ground clearance, to further increase approach and departure angles. A robust front skid plate sits underneath to help protect the oily bits. And the copper-accented roof rack has been beefed up to support up to 700 pounds, specifically to better accommodate roof-mounted tents.

Mechanically, this Outback is powered by a turbocharged 2.4-liter boxer rated at 260 horsepower and 277 lb-ft of torque. It’s mated to a CVT that’s been revised to better split low-end torque across all four wheels for better climbing capabilities. Its X-MODE all-wheel-drive system has also been revised to better transition between low-speed, crawling speeds to faster ones. Throw in an uprated suspension, heavy duty 17-inch wheels and knobby Yokohama GEOLANDAR tires and you’ve got the basic gist of things.

Get inside the Outlander Wilderness, and it feels like a regular car. It’s not the nicest, but it all feels okay, and it’s another one of those vehicles where the more “durable,” rugged nature of the interior materials feel like the right choice for the vehicle’s overall mission statement.

The drive itself is quite nice, too. After all, this is essentially a tall Legacy wagon, so the Outback Wilderness overall rides and drives like a car. Even with the CVT, the engine feels like the appropriate powertrain for this thing, offering power where you need it, when you need it. And even though our time with the Outback Wilderness was limited to the city, we love its increased ride height and chunky tires. Train tracks, potholes and missing sections of road are no longer obstacles that one needs to slow down for—just keep your foot on the gas and cruise over it all.

But alas, it’s our job to be critical, so we’ve got to find some flaws with the Subaru Outback Wilderness—and it does have a couple. Let’s start with its interior: as usual, we’re not fans of the massive 11.6-inch touchscreen that controls, well, everything. It’s not terrible to use, but as with all touchscreen displays, requires the driver to take their eyes off the road for extended periods of time to make even minor adjustments. Turning the heated seats off or on, for example, requires one to dive into new submenus.

And if we’re being honest, we’re not fans of those Yokohama GEOLANDAR tires, either. We get that they’re great on dirt. Really, we do. But they’re not great on tarmac. At slower speeds, they’re fine. But we live near roads with near-highway speed limits and sweeping curves, and it’s on these roads where we feel the Outback Wilderness lose its grip on things. Literally. It’s concerning enough that we find ourselves really rolling off the throttle lest we understeer our way into a k-rail at 45 mph. We mean, even a Prius on eco tires would feel like it’s on racing slicks compared to this thing.

At the end of the day, those two flaws aren’t exactly deal breakers. And one of them (the tires) can be fixed almost immediately. But then, if we were to equip an Outback Wilderness with a more street-oriented tire, why wouldn’t we just get a regular Outback in the first place? Right, the cool factor. Forgot about that. Let’s face it: the Outback Wilderness is the coolest wagon Subaru sells in the US right now, even if it wants to pretend it’s an SUV. That it just so happens to be a good car makes it that much more compelling.