
How Subarus Came to Be Seen as Cars for Lesbians - Gaessaki
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/how-subarus-came-to-be-seen-as-cars-for-lesbians/488042/?utm_source=quartzfb&amp;single_page=true
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burntrelish1273
Hmm, can't speak to this cultural association# but in my experience, Subarus
in the late-80's on the US West coast were these Japanese 4x4-only cars,
arriving just before SUVs made it onto the scene. They've since become
popular, practical, good-mileage vehicle if someone does mountain driving in
winter. All-in-all, it was clever marketing on their part because the early
days didn't have much advertising to speak of (and hence little/no-mindshare)
but it's interesting to see one of the transitional steps (focusing on niche
markets instead of competing with commodified-incumbents directly) needed to
get from low-volume curiosity to mainstream brand.

# A stronger example of brand-to-culture association would be VW which, in my
experience, is/was more strongly-associated with 60's counterculture.

EDIT: another article from 2016 [https://priceonomics.com/how-an-ad-campaign-
made-lesbians-fa...](https://priceonomics.com/how-an-ad-campaign-made-
lesbians-fall-in-love-with/)

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tomcam
Car buffs/tweakers have an entirely orthogonal impression of the Impreza WRX
series

