Since I live in Colorado, I find lots of Subarus during my junkyard travels. That's because those Pleiades-badged machines have been beloved in the Centennial State ever since the first four-wheel-drive (4WD) DL Wagons showed up as 1976 models. To document an early front-wheel-drive (FWD) DL Wagon, though, I went to Nevada.
This car now resides at the Pick-n-Pull in Carson City.
It can snow heavily in Carson City, which is nearly a mile above sea level, so at first glance I assumed that this non-4WD car started its career in coastal California (where gas-sipping Subarus sold well during the late 1970s). Inside, though, I found plenty of evidence that it was a lifelong Nevada resident.
You don't need 4WD to survive in a snowy region, especially if you understand the effectiveness of winter tires. The original purchaser of this car must have known that, and saved $700 by getting FWD instead of 4WD (that would be $3,774 in 2026 dollars).
Not only that, but the 4WD version of the 1978 Subaru DL Wagon came with a mandatory four-speed manual transmission, whereas the buyer of a FWD DL Wagon could get an optional "5-Speeds" manual or a three-speed automatic instead of the base four-on-the-floor.
If you wanted five speeds in your '78 DL Wagon, the cost was an even hundred bucks (about 539 of today's bucks, and this option would have paid for itself fairly quickly once the Iranian Revolution shut off the oil taps soon after this car was sold).
The original purchaser wasn't afraid of spending money on options that seemed more important that 4WD. For example, this car has air conditioning, which was a dealer-installed option so rare that I can't even find a hint of it in any of my 1978 price guides. This is only the second first-generation Leone I've found with A/C in a boneyard, after a '78 DL sedan in California.
Now we need to talk about how Subaru named these cars, because the subject gets confusing. In Japan, this car was badged as a Leone, and that name was used there through three generations from 1971 through 1994.
But in the United States, Subaru of America called the 1972-1989 Leone just "the Subaru" and used trim-level designations as de facto model names. The only exception to this rule applied to the BRAT, which was a Leone-amino. For 1978, the base trim level could only be had with a two-door sedan, nearly ever non-BRAT was a DL, and the hardtop coupe was the GF.
Calling the Leone "the Subaru" here got even more bewildering once non-Leone models (e.g., the XT and Justy) showed up during the 1980s. Subaru of America began badging the Leone as the Loyale once the bigger Legacy hit showrooms as a 1990 model, and that's the badging it kept until the end came for the Leone in 1994.
Subaru of America got its start when Malcolm Bricklin began importing the 360 kei car in the late 1960s. That car was a sales flop here, but it was followed by the FF-1 Star, which was available in the U.S. market for just a single model year. That car proved to be the direct mechanical ancestor of the Leone.
The FF-1 had a boxer-four engine driving the front wheels via a transaxle assembly that proved easy to adapt for 4WD applications later on.
That set the stage for Subaru to make the move from purveyor of hilariously tiny novelty cars to major marque with devoted fans in North America, and the car that made that happen was the 4WD-equipped first-generation Leone wagon.
That process was just beginning when today's Junkyard Find was sold and the 4WD DL Wagon was still kept in the back row during lineup photos. Subaru of America sold 48,928 cars here in 1976; three years later, that figure was 127,871.
This car was assembled at Subaru's plant in Gunma Prefecture in July 1977.
It was painted in Brilliant Red, according to this thousand-mile service receipt from December of that year.
Close to a half-century of Nevada high-desert sun has faded that paint to a matte orange.
The odometer shows close to 100,000 miles, but it's a 5-digit instrument; this car may have driven 395,641 miles for all we know.
The hood latch mechanism was fused solid, but I was able to take this shot of the engine through the vacant grille opening. If original, this pushrod H4 is a 1.6-liter rated at 67 horsepower and 81 pound-feet of torque. The buildup of mud on the block suggests lengthy outdoor storage and possible flooding.
There's another EA engine in the back. Perhaps the original engine died a decade or three back and there was a never-realized plan to swap in this one.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
1978 Subaru Leone wagon in a Nevada junkyard.
via Autobuzz Today
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