1978 Subaru Wagon Through Baja: Only the Strong Survive
From the May 1976 issue of Car and Driver.Newport Beach, Car and Driver's West Coast testing outpost, is no bad place to spend a winter, but everybody needs to try out some fresh turf now and then. Besides, we ...
From the May 1976 issue of Car and Driver.
Newport Beach, Car and Driver's West Coast testing outpost, is no bad place to spend a winter, but everybody needs to try out some fresh turf now and then. Besides, we had this Sabaru quivering in anticipation at the curb—not just an ordinary garden-variety Subaru but the four-wheel-drive wagon complete with mud-and-snow treads. Great for semi-serious scratching, but where to go? Definitely not Mulholland Drive, California's stiffest street challenge to a car's handling; the Subaru cornered with the grace of a Citroen 2CV, jacked all high and crooked on four mismatched appendages like a handicapped spider. A quick run to Reno was out: Our test car topped out at 80 mph, which will barely buy a traffic ticket without help from a flame paint job. And the thing is no good for hustling, either. One look at those sadly impotent wheel wells, the K-Mart-grade paneling, and the Wells Fargo roof rack and every fox in range just knows you've got three kids and a tract house in Encino.
So we knew we had a special case on our hands. None of the normal road-test opportunities seemed right for the Subaru. Leaving town was clearly essential to wring out such a problem child, and getting out of the country seemed even better. So we took this unique contrivance all the way back to nature...to Baja.
Now don't think we're talking about the fabled Baja 1000 course. That little trek may take three weeks (if you make it all the way) in a street machine, and worn-out Subarus are worth about four enchiladas at the south end. Instead, we made use of a perfectly good highway. There's been one for two years now that will carry you the full length of the Baja, right to the pot of gold at the southernmost tip—Cabo San Lucas.
So that was the plan: to motor down the Carretera Transpeninsular (Mexico Highway 1) from the border to the cape and back. About 20 million years ago, the Baja peninsula split itself from the Mexican mainland in a geological fit of independence. We felt it was high time such a tough land proved it could withstand the relentless assaults of a Subaru.
Getting into Mexico is easy enough. All you need is a tourist pass, easily obtained at the border with proof of citizenship. No special license is necessary for the car, but be forewarned: Full-coverage Mexican insurance is essential; in the event of a crash, they lock you up first and ask questions much, much later. We also took along a few survival rations: a couple of cans of food, two six-packs of Pepsi, some potato chips, fresh fruit, a couple days' worth of sandwiches, and three gallons of water. Emergency equipment was limited to a few hand tools, a flashlight, spare ignition parts, a fan belt, a factory service manual and 10 gallons of gasoline. Our trusty—and ultimately invaluable—paperback guide was The Baja Book, by Tom Miller and Elmar Baxter.
We crossed the border at Tijuana without hassles, part of the 15 million-strong gringo tide allowed across each year with no check for passes whatsoever. The American fringe zone stretches from this haven of bullfighting, jai alai, and duty-free tourist junk all the way to Ensenada, the Baja's third-largest city, some 70 miles south of the border. Thousands of Californians venture no farther every year, and what they see is a dingy discount-center extension of San Diego. The four-lane freeway to Ensenada could, in fact, be a part of the American Interstate system were it not for its 68-mph speed limit. Just like the Baja 1000 race, real Mexico starts just south of Ensenada, once you're beyond the last Colonel Sanders emporium and onto the two-lane highway.
Ahead lies the Baja of legend—a 1000-mile appendix to California that until two years ago had frustrated every explorer since Cortez. Hernando left broken-hearted without the gold he hoped to carry back to Spain. A little later, even Jesuit priests gave up on the Baja, cursing it as "the Land That God Forgot." During the final settlement of the Mexican war, in 1848, we got California proper and Baja was a scrap the greedy Americans left to the vanquished. Now, more than a hundred years later, the discarded peninsula offers something of which we have very little back home: a last vestige of true wilderness. But today, the vulnerable beauty of Baja is bisected by a scar of asphalt, and will survive only for a brief moment before succumbing to the strain of civilization grating across its fragile majesty. Baja is one adventure that can't last forever.
Before it ends, there's every reason to go. The fishing is the best in the world, surfers can find mile-long curls to ride on the Pacific side, bikers can lose themselves for hours in a desert playground, and simple sightseers can ride down the highway spellbound by the ever-changing terrain. In one lap of the peninsula, you'll see a lifetime's worth of cacti and some of the tallest mountains, bleakest plains, biggest rocks, and loneliest beaches in the Western Hemisphere.
And it's a great place if you're a car freak: The road is smooth and challenging. No two curves are alike, and there are millions of opportunities to lay down the fast line, but there are harsh penalties if you make a mistake. Instead of the luxury of wide shoulders, the highway has sharp drops at the pavement's edge. Also, the roadside is dotted with short, cylindrical concrete markers that will collapse a rim if you drift too close. The steeper escarpments are guarded by Armco barriers, and through every gaping hole you can view Baja's prey: the carcasses of car bodies twisted and bashed into unrecognizable forms. In light of the potential danger, the posted speed limit has been kept to a maximum of 50 mph, but there are countless stretches where you can safely cruise at twice that. Your own prudence is your only guide; Baja has no ticket-writing highway patrol, only a fleet of tourist-aid trucks known as Green Angels.
Oddly enough, it's the perfect place for a four-wheel-drive Subaru. The wagon has plenty of room for two and their accessories and can be pressed into service for overnight shelter if necessary. Subaru is one of the few manufacturers not hooked on catalytic converters these days, so you can readily burn Mexican gasoline. And with a tiny, 80-cubic inch motor under the hood, fuel stops are few and far between. We measured 27 mpg (city) and 29 mpg (highway) in the C/D mileage cycle, but nearly flat-out running on the trip cut our average mileage to 21 mpg. In any case, range was a good 250 miles.
Granted, a lot of machines offer that, but the Subaru adds the flexibility of off-road worthiness. Despite a low reserve of power, which can be a problem if you're climbing through sand, the wagon is light enough to avoid digging itself into holes. And if you don't have the ability to leave the pavement in Baja, you might as well spend your vacation in a stateside Howard Johnson's parking lot, because the flocks of campers have reduced seclusion to just about that level in the popular spots. You really need to one-up the Winnebago set in mobility to escape from their well-worn paths.
No matter how you go, a reliable machine is essential. William Schafer and Mark Vandorn can testify to that. We found them stranded in Guerrero Negro, barely 450 miles into a planned trip to British Honduras. The legs of a Mexican mechanic trailed out the back of their VW camper, and even though he labored for bargain rates (three days' work for a couple of six-packs and $30 cash), he wasn't having much luck repairing their engine full of refried pistons. An 80,000-mile Volkswagen is not a machine up to a Baja challenge.
A fresh Subaru, however, works great. As it gobbled up miles, our first day's extra-cautious attitude dissolved into little more than a reasonable respect for the place. Dollars are as acceptable as pesos in Baja, and exchanges are fast and fair. Gasoline is no problem whatsoever, making the extra 10 gallons on board just excess baggage. The government-operated Pemex stations are spaced frequently along the highway, and their premium-grade "Extra" kept the Subaru rolling without a ping of protest. The pumps are marked lead-free, but they lack a small nozzle for catalyst cars.
We found lodging expensive but painless through the nationalized system of El Presidente hotels, which have most of the luxuries of a Holiday Inn but offer their own brand of local ambience and reasonably good food. On the road, you'd better be selective about what you eat, but it's difficult to starve in Baja. As to Mexican water and its legendary effects on gringo alimentary tracts, we have little to report: We didn't drink any and didn't get sick. English-speaking locals are seldom far away when inept Northerners need help, and we found the Mexican people extremely friendly and most accommodating.
The deeper we went into Baja, however, the more the remaining signs of America irritated. The news that DOT Secretary Coleman had decided to relax U.S. barriers to the Concorde SST droned out of the Subaru's radio, courtesy of Sacramento's powerful KBN reaching a full 700 miles below the border. Clusters of roadside campers seemed to thicken. California license plates account for roughly 70 percent of the vehicle population, with the remainder equally divided between other Americans and Mexicans. Another glaring reminder of civilization is the tin-can problem: there's an almost-continuous band of litter at the highway's edge that will send shivers of guilt down the spine of any survivor of Lady Bird Johnson's generation.
Just as casually left to rust in the sun are the abandoned auto bodies spotted every few miles. Baja is tough on cars, and when they die, their cemetery is the roadside. Usually, they're stripped to a bare bulk because automobile hoods and roof panels (intermediate sedans and larger preferred) help to make an adobe hovel livable. Presumably, the mechanicals become replacement parts for the vast fleets of broken-down cars you see moored alongside every clump of humanity. No home is without an A-frame hoist to assist the recycling.
After two days hammering down the Frijole Freeway, the glaring contrast of a beautiful land marred by Mother Nature's archenemy starts to grind on you. Out of one side of the car you suddenly catch the first glimpse of the magnificent Sea of Cortez between mountains north of Santa Rosalia, but the very next turn in the road reveals the town's trash heap. Like the travel posters say, Baja is a paradise—but a flawed one.
We pressed on harder and faster, hoping to find a respite at the cape. Cabo San Lucas, we hoped, would be beyond the range—in terms of both distance and price—of the camper set. All side trips were canceled on this last sprint. No more adventures like yesterday's search for a dry lake. (The Subaru's four-wheel traction got us there with no concern about getting back. The old trail parallels the highway in many spots, and a half hour down that bumpy demolition course will show you exactly what Mickey Thompson and Parnelli Jones are made of.) Stunning beaches that had been ours for the asking, courtesy of the Subaru's ability to tiptoe right up to the water's edge, would have to wait. Now it was flat out down the last few miles of pavement. The goal was San Lucas by sunset, promised by our guidebook to be an unforgettable experience.
South of La Paz, we came upon a critical fork in the highway. The cape lies either 132 miles farther along the Sea of Cortez coast or 102 miles by the Pacific route. With the hope of saving a few precious minutes, we choose the shorter path, even though the book advised that the last 50-mile stretch "is scheduled to be paved before the end of 1974."
After we were 51 miles committed, the pavement petered out onto a dirt path. Schedule in Spanish apparently has about the same urgency as mañana. So as the sun was just kissing the sparkling waters of the Pacific, we pointed the intrepid Subaru toward the severest challenge of the trip: a special-stage run over a non-road shared by every animal indigenous to the area. Somehow, the locals traverse this stretch without four-wheel drive, but then getting stuck for a day is probably no major source of strife for them.
With its high ground clearance and superior mobility, the Subaru never gave us a moment's hesitation, but the pace was slow. As night fell, the bobbing pair of headlamps provided the only relief from a blackness as thick as that at the bottom of a mine. Dust filtered through to create a dense cloud inside the car. The darkness and our fatigue brought out the animals: real Mexican cattle that refused to believe they had to change lanes to let us pass and chimerical rabbits bigger than the Subaru. As we bounced along with gasoline sloshing, apples rolling and potato chips everywhere, the Press-On-Regardless seemed like it would be a snap after this.
Suddenly, at the top of a particularly difficult climb, I knew what Christopher Columbus had felt like. The unmistakable glow of civilization was in the distance. Twenty minutes later, the wilderness dissolved in the glitter of the town of San Lucas. In another 20 minutes, I was dissolving in the shower of a sumptuous Hacienda hotel suite. And in 10 more, a polite waiter set before me the world's largest lobster.
Now for such a performance beyond the call of duty, the highest honors are barely adequate. I lounged through a lazy weekend in San Lucas where two seas meet to create a tropical paradise. Even the Subaru got a brief rest before a hard trip back. But along the way, it was adorned with a matched set of horns once worn by a noble beast—an appropriate garland for a machine proven Baja-tough.