Subaru’s refreshed 2023 Outback gets new body cladding

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Subaru’s four-door Outback wagon is back with a mid-cycle refresh, bringing a restyled front end and some novel safety smarts for the 2023 model year, its debut at the New York auto show this week revealed.

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Starting from the outside, changes include a stretched honeycomb grille with even more elongated openings (we would not want to meet the bee large enough to crawl out of that honeycomb) and headlights that look more shapely and avian. 

Fog lights also sit differently within the reworked high-contrast front fascia that frames the front end like the moustaches of the hipsters who will inevitably buy the car. The dual-tone effect continues above the wheels – themselves a new arrowhead style – with a black protective cladding.

These changes will apparently not grace the Wilderness trim, which will appear as it did last year. But the Onyx Edition does get an update, including new black alloy wheels and exterior accents, water-resistant upholstery, and the option to have Subaru’s four-cylinder engine naturally aspirated to the tune of 182 horsepower or turbocharged for 260 horsepower. 

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Interior additions for the 2023 Outback are less obvious, but still there. The front driver’s seat now includes adjustable four-way power lumbar support, and both front and back seats have access to USB-C and USB-A ports. There’s also an available rear LED light that illuminates the cargo and an area behind the vehicle, plus a new smart rear-view mirror that gives a wide-angle view of what’s back there. 

On the Outback’s vertically oriented 11.6-inch Starlink multimedia system, users can now ditch the cord and wirelessly access Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. 

Updates were made to the brand’s EyeSight system, including the addition of automatic emergency steering that intervenes with steering and brake applications in the event of a predicted collision.

Subaru is also incorporating the novel location system what3words (W3W), which enables navigation to anywhere in the world with the use of just three words. (We’ve covered before how that tech works for other brands that have tried it.)

The raft of changes announced in New York are, of course, for the U.S. market, but we’ll update this story with Canadian specifics, if they differ, once we hear back from the manufacturer. Pricing for the 2023 Outback should follow in the coming weeks or months, followed by the vehicle itself later this year.