Auto News 5

Subaru Rally Team USA principal Lance Smith stares into the woods, arms crossed, his eyes fixed and narrow beneath a dark pair of sunglasses. He leans over and begins to speak, but he gets only as far as, "The thing about Ken Block . . ." before being cut off by the sound of spraying gravel. A Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution launches out of a crop of trees at 70 mph aimed straight for his chest, only to pitch sideways under braking at the last minute and catapult down the road. Smith, unfazed, picks up where he left off: ". . . is that, out of all the guys here, while he may not be paid the most, he definitely puts the most into it."

To the surprise of absolutely no one, auto sales in March were dismal, again. Any month that sees the stock market fall back onto its face, job losses surge (especially among white-collar workers), and renewed talk of bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler isn't going to be a month when droves of consumers suddenly decide to rush down to their local dealerships with fistfuls of cash in hand. Industry-wide, sales were down by 37% compared to a year ago, but what few people remember is that March 2008 sales weren't so great either, off by 12% from the prior year. What's striking about this March is that there's been very little change in the mix of which models are relatively strong and which are practically sale-proof, as we'll see when we compare the March '09 sales figures and those for the first three months of the year.

In addition to its all-new, 2010 Legacy sedan, Subaru unveiled the Legacy's butched-up sibling, the Outback wagon, at the 2009 New York auto show. Like the Legacy, the new Outback goes on sale in late summer.

The 2008 New York Auto Show comes a month earlier this year and just two weeks after the previous stop in Geneva, thanks to the early coming of Easter.