The Baja technically succeeded the BRAT but was a larger vehicle based on the Subaru Outback. It was AWD only and had four seats inside the cabin, making it much closer to modern equivalents like the Ford Maverick. This time around, Subaru did produce the pickup in the US, with production commencing in July 2002 at the automaker’s Lafayette, Indiana plant that currently manufactures the Legacy, Outback, Ascent, and Crosstrek.
Named after the iconic Baja 100 rally trucks, it derived power from the iconic EJ25 flat-four, both in naturally aspirated and turbocharged guises.
Sadly, the Baja wasn’t as successful as anticipated, and while Subaru projected 24,000 sales a year, the reality was that only 30,000 were sold over four and a half years on the market. At the end of July 2007, the Baja disappeared from Subaru USA’s website, and the Indiana factory started manufacturing Toyota Camrys in its place.
