A Junkyard in Denver Reveals a Rare Breed: The Manual-Equipped Subaru Outback

In a Denver-area salvage yard, an unusual sight turned up: a 2013 Subaru Outback fitted with a six-speed manual gearbox. For U.S. buyers of that era, such a combination was almost unheard of. The fourth-generation Outback, sold here from 2010 through 2014, had grown larger and more SUV-like than the model it replaced, and the vast majority left dealerships with a CVT.

Subaru’s U.S. lineup today keeps the manual alive only in the BRZ and WRX. That wasn’t always the case. During the second-generation Outback’s run, a meaningful share of American buyers still chose the stick, partly because the automatic carried a significant price premium on four-cylinder cars. The H6 versions, meanwhile, came only with an automatic.

Even as the third-generation Outback continued to offer a five-speed manual as base equipment on most four-cylinder trims, the manual was fading fast. By the 2010-2014 cars, examples with three pedals are so scarce that many Subaru enthusiasts doubt they were ever built at all. After the fifth-generation model arrived for 2015, the manual survived in select markets only until 2017, when the Lineartronic CVT became the sole Outback transmission worldwide.

This particular find, assembled in Indiana like all U.S.-market 2013 Outbacks, is a base 2.5i. It carried an MSRP of $23,495 when new and packs a 2.5-liter FB25B flat-four rated at 173 horsepower and 174 lb-ft of torque. The body shows minor damage and the cabin looks reasonably intact, suggesting a costly mechanical failure rather than a crash sent it to the scrapyard. The Outback’s shift from quirky wagon to full SUV is complete, but relics like this one keep the manual-transmission chapter alive.