Sunday Driving: Subaru History 1968-1976

This year Subaru of America, Inc. celebrates a landmark anniversary - 35 years of providing you, our customers, with unique, carefully engineered vehicles designed to fit your lifestyle. We're proud of our history and heritage, and it's a good time to take a look back at how Subaru of America has evolved and grown in the past few decades.

America was introduced to Subaru during a time of wall-to-wall change. Vietnam was on our minds and on our television screens, while protesters filled college campuses and the streets. "Peace, love, rock and roll" was the mantra, "flower power" was in full bloom and a generation of musicians traded dance beats for a political voice.

The Watergate incident would become the symbol of a failed presidency. And 240,000 miles from earth, Apollo 11's Eagle raised clouds of lunar dust as it settled onto the Sea of Tranquility.

This was the moment - as America took wild swings from seismic jolts of conflict and shock to unimaginable technical triumph - that the Subaru 360 hit America's highways. Imported from Japan, it was cheap ($1,297!), and it was ugly. But it set in motion a company with a vision that synched with what Americans were looking for.

The 360: Automotive Iconoclasm

While the 360 was not exactly the car for daredevils, it did offer practical, ultra-economical transportation to the pioneering 600 drivers who put their faith in a product from a new company with Japanese parentage.

The 360's "cheap and ugly" image was perfectly suited to an era when prices were low enough to make jaws drop open in amazement today. It was a time when gas cost 34 cents a gallon, first-class stamps were just 6 cents, a dozen eggs cost 53 cents and you could be the proud owner of a brand-new home for just $26,600. Sounds pretty good, even with a median household income of about $8,000 a year. And it was a time when "ugly" was, well, the clothes you put on every morning.