2026 Subaru Outback price and specs: New-gen SUV range includes rugged Wilderness

The new seventh-generation Subaru Outback is coming to Australia in 2026, bringing more brutal styling, slight price rises, and new, more rugged Wilderness variants.

Announced yesterday, the five-variant Outback range now starts at $48,990 before on-roads, up $4800 on the outgoing model.

Launching Australia with the arrival of the new Outback is Subaru’s previously US-only Wilderness sub-brand, designed to bring more hardcore off-road-focused modifications to the Japanese brand’s SUV range.

Subaru says to think of it like the enhancements STI brings to performance, but for off-roading instead.

Two Wilderness variants will be offered at launch, and with their turbocharged boxer engines, they effectively replace the turbo XT variants in the outgoing Outback.

The Wilderness range starts at $59,690 before on-road costs, which is $2200 more than the outgoing top-spec Outback Touring XT.

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Powering the regular Outback is a 2.5-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder boxer engine with 137kW of power and 245Nm of torque. These figures are practically identical to the outgoing model.

The Outback Wilderness, meanwhile, gets the XT’s 2.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder boxer engine, but in a different state of tune. With 194kW of power and 382Nm of torque, it’s only 8kW down on the WRX (which has the same engine), but packs an additional 32Nm of torque.

Compared to the XT, outputs are up by 11kW and 32Nm, but the introduction of the new sub-brand means you’ll no longer be able to get a turbocharged Outback unless it’s a Wilderness. It does, however, receive adaptive suspension for the first time, which Subaru says is similar in design to the adaptive setup in the WRX tS.

As is typical for Subaru, the new Outback is offered only with all-wheel-drive, and power is sent through a continuously variable transmission (CVT) with an ‘eight-speed’ manual mode.