The Subaru XT Coupe was something of a major departure for the Fuji Heavy Industries vehicle division. Most of its previous offerings were specifically designed for practical applications such as carrying loads or commercial purposes. It was Subaru's first real attempt to produce an affordable sports car.
The advertisement itself isn't just 80s, it's ridiculously, all in, distilled, Grade-A pure 80s. Like Tom Cruise in Top Gun 80s. In fact, if Maverick didn't ride a Kawasaki Ninja GPZ900R motorcycle, I could totally imagine him in one of these. The highest end models actually drew heavily from FHI's aircraft division, and it's very obvious. In addition to the flat horizontally opposed cylinder layout of Subaru's boxer engines, there are other more visible clues to the vehicle's aircraft heritage. The retractable door handles are straight off of Subaru aircraft, the instrument cluster and various option buttons are clearly aircraft inspired, and the "pistol grip" shifter with "on-demand" 4WD button (in some cases available in bright red) on either the 4-speed automatic transmission or the five-speed manual transmission makes me feel like I want to go to "weapons hot" and pew pew at oncoming MiGs... or maybe just that asshole driving a kei van at 20 KM/hr in a 50 KM/hr zone.
Subaruster onYouTube really got an amazing deal on this Arizona kept 1987 XT. It looks brand new, and wow, is that the cleanest engine bay ever. I agree with him that looks like it just came from the factory. The irony of these cars being Japanese is that very few were sold in Japan, so you're much more likely to find them in the United States than here in Japan. Because they're so rare in Japan (only about 8,000 were sold), they're still very expensive. Roughly $5K-$7K, depending on mileage and condition.
I'd rock it with aviator glasses, a leather jacket, and Highway to the Danger Zone blasting from open windows. Wouldn't you?
Image via Public Domain/Videos via YouTube.