Subaru 1300 DL (1984) – Into the Wild

We take you to a time when Subaru didn’t have a Forester, Legacy or Outback and when even the Justy didn’t exist. Subaru first opened sales channels in the Netherlands in 1972 and launched an entirely new model family in 1979, the successor to the first generation in Japan called Leone L-series. The L-series was rarely referred to as such in the Netherlands. Subaru simply stuck with names like 1300 and 1600, referring to the petrol engine contents, followed by the trim and body style. The 1300 DL Sedan in these photos is – you do not expect it – a sedan with a modest 1.3 four-cylinder.

The gray one in the photos dates from 1984 and crossed the Dutch border for the first time ten years ago. Under the hood of the front-wheel drive and 4.15 meter long Subaru is a 1.3 boxer engine that generates 61 hp and 93 Nm. That modest power found its way into the base via a four-speed manual transmission to the front wheels, although the DL version eventually also received a five-speed manual transmission. With that humble heart, the sedan rumbled to a speed of 100 km/h in 16.5 counts. The top speed? 150 km/h, The L-series was not only available as a sedan, Subaru also supplied it as a shorter hatchback and as a coupé (hardtop) and station wagon.

Given the Subaru flag on the interior mirror, the gray copy is clearly in the hands of an enthusiast. Of course, the 1300 DL is no longer like new after 37 years. He is marked by his modest existence, an existence in which he probably had to fight off the rust devil with varying degrees of success. It could just be that you know this second generation L-series/Leone mainly with square headlights. The 1300 DL has kept the round binoculars a lot longer than the more powerful 1600 and 1800’s.

In the mid-1980s, this second-generation L-series passed the baton to the third generation, a car that was eventually replaced in the early 1990s by the much more modern-looking Impreza, a car that was clearly a child of the 90s with its rounder shapes.