The 2000 Subaru Outback Limited Sedan Is Junkyard Treasure

For more than 15 years, the Subaru Outback has been an icon in snow-prone areas: an adventurous-looking station wagon with high ground clearance and tough plastic cladding. Until 2004, however, Subaru shoppers could buy Outback sedans (and they could get Impreza Outbacks until 1999). Not many Outback sedans ever rolled out of the showrooms, but Coloradans liked them well enough and I was able to find this loaded '00 Limited in a Denver yard.

This car was still a Legacy (the Outback didn't become an officially distinct model until the 2005 model year), but Subaru dropped all visible Legacy badging on the Outback's exterior starting in 2000. Every Subaru sold in North America had all-wheel-drive beginning in the 1997 model year, but prominent AWD emblems still adorned these cars well into our current century.

The third-generation Legacy debuted here for the 2000 model year, and it was bigger and less quirky than its predecessors. This one is a Limited, so it has air conditioning, leather seats, and the cool weather-band radio that came in so handy for slopes-bound Coloradans in the pre-smartphone era. Eventually, all Outbacks got the weather-band feature.

The final owner of this car appears to have been a guitar-playing, heavy-smoking Dungeons & Dragons aficionado.