Subaru has announced that production of the Legacy will end at the conclusion of the 2025 model year, after 36 years. That is indeed the end of an era for one of the Japanese maker's most popular and enduring models.
But for New Zealand, any Legacy-related sadness subsided years ago. The announcement about the end of Legacy production came from Subaru of America... because that's the only place in the world that Legacy is still manufactured.
Japan stopped production of the 6th-generation Legacy in 2020, which also meant the end of the model for NZ. At the time, Subaru of NZ announced a "fond farewell" for the car, which had clocked up 4000 new-vehicle sales over the years and was at one time also NZ's most popular used import.
The final models for NZ were 2.5-litre and 3.6-litre large sedans introduced in 2015, which were aimed at the likes of the soon-to-be discontinued Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore.
The Kiwi announcement also came with a footnote that in 2019, the brand sold just 64 Legacy models, compared to 1322 Outback SUVs.
The last Legacy manufactured by Subaru of America is a version never seen in other markets, a 7th-generation model. And that's quite fitting, because Subaru created Legacy primarily for the US market in 1989, to compete with the likes of the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Mazda 626.
You can still have a Legacy wagon, really
The Legacy's, um, legacy lives on in the Outback. The Outback was another creation of Subaru of America in 1994; it jacked up the suspension of the Legacy wagon and added body cladding to make it a pseudo-SUV, thereby creating one of the first true "crossover" models.
The Outback rapidly took on a life of its own and was soon marketed simply as "Outback", dropping the reference to the Legacy donor car.
The current Outback (which owes quite a bit to the US 7th-gen Legacy) is still a popular model for Subaru of NZ today.