Star-Telegram.com's view

Subaru’s largest and most-expensive SUV yet, the 2006 B9 Tribeca, will begin arriving in dealerships in early June with a base price of $31,320 for a five-passenger version, and $38,320 for a fully equipped seven-passenger version, including navigation and DVD rear-seat entertainment systems.

Introduced at the Detroit auto show in early January, the B9 Tribeca will become Subaru’s flagship vehicle, and the Japanese automaker’s first midsize sport utility. Subaru says the vehicle is built on a highly modified Legacy sedan chassis — the new-generation Legacy that was introduced last year.

This all-new vehicle SUV, which was introduced in January at the Detroit auto show, will go on sale in late May. It will become the company’s new flagship, and will be the largest Subaru vehicle yet.

The company began production of the B9 Tribeca in early May at its plant in Lafayette, Ind.

After years of selling its popular Outback and Forester wagons as almost-SUVs, the B9 Tribeca moves Subaru fully into the sport utility realm, although like the Outback and Forester, the Tribeca is a crossover model, rather than a true truck-based SUV.

“Subaru has again created a category of one” with the B9 Tribeca, said Fred Adcock, executive vice president of Subaru of America, the company’s U.S. arm.

“There is no other midsize SUV in the industry that can deliver this kind of value with a premium level of driving performance, safety and standard features such as symmetrical all-wheel drive, sophisticated stability control, and side-curtain air bags,” he said.

The vehicle bears a new design theme that will be appearing on other new Subaru products in the future, an attempt by the company to bring more style to its products along with Subaru’s traditional values. Among those, of course, are such qualities as extreme practicality, all-weather capabilities, safety, and, of course, Japanese reliability and longevity.

Subaru also is touting the vehicle’s fun quotient, something that usually isn’t emphasized in sport utility vehicles.

“The Subaru B9 Tribeca is a progressively designed SUV that combines the fun-to-drive handling, maneuverability and fuel efficiency found in Subaru sport wagons with the roominess and capability of an SUV,” the company said in a news release.

With that starting price above $31,000, the Tribeca almost falls into the premium SUV class, and as such, it comes with a long list of standard amenities.

Under the hood is a traditional Subaru boxer engine — a 3.0-liter, horizontally-opposed six-cylinder with variable valve timing. It’s rated at an impressive 250 horseower and 219 foot-pounds of torque.

The only transmission offered is a five-speed automatic with Sportshift manual-shift function (clutchless, of course).

Also included on the vehicle are variable torque distribution and a dynamic stability control system. Of course, as with all Subarus sold in North America, all-wheel drive will be standard.

Other features include seven-spoke, 18-inch aluminum-alloy wheels; power antilock four-wheel disc brakes with ventilated front and rear discs; dual front, side seat and curtain air bags; electronic brake-force distribution; dual-zone automatic climate control; tilt/slide tinted-glass moon roof with sliding shade; electroluminescent gauges; 100-watt single CD stereo with six speakers and MP3 compatibility; power eight-way driver’s seat and power four-way front passenger seat (with lumbar adjustment); leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob; 40/20/40 split-folding rear seatback; deep-tinted privacy glass; and HomeLink universal garage/gate opener.

The base five-passenger model will have everything on that list for the $31,320 price (including freight).

But you can upgrade to the Limited model ($32,295 plus $625 freight), which brings extras such as leather seats; 160-watt audio system with six-disc in-dash CD changer and MP3 compatibility, as well as eight speakers and a rear sub-woofer; and three-mode heated front seats.

For those needed seven-passenger seating — the most popular configuration for midsize SUVs these days — the base B9 Tribeca with a third seat starts at $32,395 (plus freight).

Subaru says it gets all of the amenities of the five0-passenger base model, along with a 50/50 split-folding third-row seatback with integral headrests and carpeted back surface; auxiliary rear air conditioner with fan speed control in the second row; and those three-mode heated front seats.

As with the five-passenger model, this one can be upgraded to the Limited trim level ($33,895 plus freight), which tacks on the same amenities as with the five-passenger Limited.

The factory-installed DVD entertainment system with nine-inch, wide-screen LCD, two sets of wireless headphones, remote control and auxiliary input for video games will be offered on five- and seven-passenger models (base and Limited) for $1,800. The touch-screen GPS navigation system will be available on the Limited seven-passenger model only, however. Price for that system will be $2,000.

Only two interior colors are offered: slate gray or desert beige. Exterior color choices include a lot of varieties of pearl: Atlantic blue pearl, champagne gold pearl, mahogany red pearl, obsidian black pearl, and satin white pearl; along with seacrest green metallic and titanium silver metallic.

At the New York auto show in late March, Subaru introduced two new models for 2005 that are variants of the compact Forester sport-utility wagon.

They are the latest L.L. Bean edition, continuing Subaru’s tie-in with the outdoor-equipment retailer; and a sport-performance model called the 2.5 XT Limited, which comes with a 230-horsepower engine — the most powerful yet for the Forester, which is based on the compact Impreza sedan platform.

G. Chambers Williams III is staff automotive columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and former transportation writer for the Star-Telegram. His automotive columns have appeared regularly in the Star-Telegram since 1995. Contact him at (210) 250-3236; chambers@star-telegram.com.