The big book of motoring history is filled with examples of cars and special editions named after exotic, fashionable and historic locations. SEAT’s back catalogue reads like a list of destinations visited by Judith Chalmers; wish you were in Ibiza, Marbella, Toledo, Málaga or Córdoba?
You'll be able to reel off a list of cars named after British locations: Cambridge, Oxford, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Hereford, Westminster, Somerset and Blackbird Leys, to name just a few. Race tracks are another winner. Examples include Daytona, Le Mans, Bonneville, Sebring, Monza, Nürburgring and North Circular – the glamour, adrenaline and incredible feats of daring-do. Then there’s Ford, with the likes of Cortina, Capri and Granada. Names now synonymous as much with the cars as they are with the destinations. ‘Lanzarote? I thought Tracey had a Cortina.’ With apologies to Nicholas Lyndhurst.
Other cars have names inspired by American locations. A large Hyundai SUV named after the capital of New Mexico. A couple of Chevrolets named after a beach resort in Santa Monica and a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. There’s also the Yugo Florida, which sounds suspiciously like a budget airline from the 1990s. ‘Yugo Florida, we go places.’ Must try harder.
Or should that be, must Tribeca? Naming a family SUV after a hip and trendy neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan makes a lot of sense. Why pretend that your tough-as-nails SUV will venture further off the beaten track than a raised kerb outside an artisan bakery on Franklin Street? Tribeca, formerly TriBeCa, is short for Triangle Below Canal Street. A rather odd name for a car, but Japan is no stranger to weirdness. Pantry Boy Supreme is the name of a Nissan bread van, not the name of a bakery in New York City.
The US-built B9 Tribeca was Subaru’s first SUV. A rival for the BMW X5, Volvo XC90 and Nissan Murano, it came with permanent all-wheel drive and a 3.0-litre flat-six boxer engine from the Legacy 3.0R Spec B. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, the 245bhp engine was strangled by a five-speed automatic transmission, so you can forget any thoughts about the B9 Tribeca being a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. In fact, given the, er, challenging styling, it’d be more like a ‘wolf in dog’s clothing’, although some would say it was just a ‘dog’.
A manual gearbox could have made all the difference to the driving experience, but it wouldn’t have sorted the looks. Subaru delved into its aeronautical heritage locker to come up with a grille inspired by a pair of wings and a fuselage. Passengers are reminded that sick bags can be found in the seat-back pocket. Subaru facelifted the car in 2007, and although the result was less terrifying for young children, it became just another family SUV. Individuality traded for corporate style. See also: Fiat Multipla and Skoda Yeti. Subaru also dropped the rather meaningless B9 identifier from the name. That’s B for ‘boxer’ and 9 for an internal category code. Interestingly, the facelifted Tribeca gives us a hint of what the stillborn Saab 9-6X would have looked like. The sister model to the Tribeca was due to be launched during the ‘Saabaru’ era, which brought us the likes of the 9-2X, 9-7X and 9-4X. There’s a 9-6X in the Saab Museum in Trollhättan; spoiler alert: it looks more desirable than the Subaru.
The Subaru Triangle Below Canal Street arrived here in November 2006. Subaru said it had a database of more than 1200 interested customers, although many of them took one look at the car and went scurrying off to the sanctuary of German and Swedish SUVs. In a land where premium badges reign supreme, the Tribeca always faced an uphill struggle, but the car’s you-thought-the-Rodius-looked-odd styling didn’t do it any favours. Their loss, because at £28,995 for the five-seat version, the Tribeca was a bargain. An extra £3000 added some extras to the already lavish specification, while an additional £2000 on top of that turned the Tribeca into a seven-seater, complete with DVD rear-seat entertainment system and rear air con. In an American-Japanese tussle between the Tribeca and the Murano (last month’s guilty pleasure), it’d be a tough call; it’s the twin test you’ve been waiting for…
Needless to say, I’ve always fancied a Tribeca. I reckon I’d find it harder to live with the automatic transmission than the styling, which is a welcome tonic to the identikit look of most other SUVs. I’m not hip, happening or trendy enough to live in Tribeca, but I reckon owning a cosmetically challenged Subaru SUV would be a lasting legacy.
This article first appeared in issue 16 of Classic.Retro.Modern. magazine.
