This '90s Subaru concept served as the connection between the Brat and the Baja.

      Subaru

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      I have a fondness for Subaru. The brand embraces its image and caters to its most loyal fans, which is more than can be said for many others. However, I will never be able to overlook this. In the early '90s, Subaru created a vehicle that blended elements of a wagon and a pickup truck, which could have been one of the coolest family cars ever. This vehicle was called the Subaru Suiren—meaning "water lily" in Japanese—but unfortunately, it remained a concept.

      The Suiren was first unveiled to the public at the 1993 Tokyo Motor Show and was intended to succeed the beloved Brat. Based on the contemporary Impreza, the Suiren was essentially a ute featuring two doors and four seats with a small pickup bed, but it maintained the posture of a car. Additionally, it included a removable hard top canopy for the bed, effectively transforming it into a two-door wagon. The canopy featured large side windows that distinguished it from a typical pickup truck cover and were reportedly crafted from shatterproof plastic. Similar to the Subaru Baja, which wouldn’t debut for nearly another decade, the Suiren included a folding midgate bulkhead between the bed and cabin for longer item storage.

      Perhaps Subaru should have refined the Suiren’s design further, as it wasn't particularly attractive. It introduced the brand's distinctive bug-eye front-end, which was acceptable, but appeared odd and misshapen with the canopy attached. As a pickup, however, it had a decent look.

      Consider what was lost. Subaru

      Beneath that unconventional design lay the typical Subaru traits. It housed a 2.5-liter flat-four engine and featured a full-time all-wheel-drive system, employing the brand’s renowned viscous-coupling center differential. Intriguingly, what could fit in between these components was noteworthy. While it was offered with a standard manual transmission, according to Drive.au, Subaru also collaborated with Prodrive to develop a new automatic transmission for the Suiren—the same Prodrive known for building racing vehicles. This semi-automated sequential gearbox would have allowed manual shifting through buttons on the steering wheel, potentially revolutionary for 1993. In today’s era of CVT-only Subarus, learning about any ambitious automatic makes me feel both thrilled and disappointed.

      Unfortunately, the Tokyo Motor Show was where the Suiren's journey ended. Instead, Subaru replaced the Brat with the four-door Baja in 2002, which at least retained the midgate feature.

      Imagine what an exciting world it could have been with two-door utes in circulation, capable of transforming into wagons when necessary.

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