This is the story of how a struggling Japanese car brand broke into the U.S. market… a story of all-wheel-drive wagons and the ladies who love them.
After all, every carmaker has that stereotypical driver:
- BMWs? Jerks who don’t know what a turn signal is.
- Volvos? Distressingly sensible people who buy the car with the best airbags.
- Tesla Cybertrucks? I can’t think of anything fit to print.
And for Subies? Those are the cars for ladies who like ladies.
This is the brief and improbable history of why that is.
A note on language…
I’m going to be really loosey-goosey here and use “lesbian,” “queer women,” “ladies who like ladies,” and “sapphic folks” interchangeably. I do it from a place of love! If you’re mad or have questions, read the note at the bottom of the page… I think you’ll like it!
Subaru Ads from the 1990s… IYKYK
Early Subaru ads didn’t just *come out* and market the brand as LGBTQ-friendly. It was all wink and nod… just enough to be noticed by the right people without setting off the pearl-clutchers and the angry reactionaries.
Take this ad from the early ’90s. If you’re the traditional audience for a car commercial, you probably see a bunch of high-performance athletes and think, Ah, Subaru must make a high-performance car.
But the ladies-who-like-ladies in the audience? Oh, they knew.
That first athlete featured? Martina Navratilova, tennis legend and trailblazing lesbian icon. It was the kind of subtle nod that flew under the radar of mainstream audiences but landed directly where it needed to.
Smart move, too, considering what happened when IKEA ran an ad featuring a gay couple and got absolutely roasted by The New York Times. They got bomb threats, the vitriol really cannot be overstated. Subaru played it cool, and the message still got through.
Over time, though, the ads got less subtle. Take a look at these… by the last one, Subaru’s marketing team was getting downright BAWDY with it. I pretty near snorted out my coffee the first time I saw it.
Some old “subtle” Subaru ads aimed towards lesbians. Enjoy ☺️
by inactuallesbians
The Business Case for Being Nice to Lesbians
Now, I’m not saying the only way to sell cars is to market them to lesbians. But… well… just LOOK at this Subaru sales graph.
Graph sourced by Adventure Subaru of Arkansas, they wrote an excellent brand history!
See that sharp turnaround in the early ‘90s? Subaru was on the rocks, circling the drain like Isuzu, and then… boom! Sales skyrocketed.
Was it only the sapphic folks who saved Subaru? Probably not. But the data suggests that embracing inclusivity didn’t hurt. If anything, it gave Subaru a halo effect. When you build goodwill with one community, others notice. And let’s be honest… Subaru’s core appeal (reliable, rugged, and practical) resonated with a lot of ladies, lesbians included.
Let’s Get One Thing Straight…
I read a headline while researching this piece (yes, I do research these articles). It said:
“How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Fall in Love with Subaru.”
Let’s get one thing straight… nobody makes lesbians do anything. That’s kind of their whole deal.
Lesbians didn’t fall for some ad campaign cooked up in a boardroom full of guys. They fell for the car. And frankly, it’s not hard to see why.
Here’s what Subarus are good at, paired with things that (many) ladies want in a car:
- Reliability: Any woman who has set foot in a mechanic’s shop knows… you want to go back as little as possible. Subaru’s reputation for dependability means fewer encounters with the B.S. circus that is car mechanics.
- All-Wheel Drive: Off-roading is cool, but not needing to be towed when the weather turns bad is even cooler. Avoiding ditches? That’s a win.
- Whatever the Opposite of Luxury Is: Ever notice that luxury cars are mostly driven by graying old men? A staggering 93% of luxury car buyers are male (per a UK study). Most women (queer or otherwise) just don’t care about whatever Porsche is selling.
Subaru’s marketing team didn’t invent these preferences. They just noticed them. By aligning their advertising with an audience that already liked what they were selling, they tapped into a loyal customer base, sold a ton of AWD wagons, and made a bunch of ladies happy in the process.
What Does “Subaru” Even Mean?
Subaru is the Japanese word for “coming together.”
(STOP GIGGLING, CHILDREN. THIS IS A SERIOUS ARTICLE… IN A NOT-SO-SERIOUS MAGAZINE.)
It’s also the Japanese name for the Pleiades constellation, also known in English as the Seven Sisters.
Fun fact: Subaru’s logo only has six stars because, according to tradition, the seventh sister is invisible.
The name has a hidden meaning, too… Subaru was originally part of Fuji Heavy Industries, a conglomerate of five smaller car companies. The largest star in the logo represents Fuji, while the five smaller ones represent its subsidiaries.
So, yeah. Subaru literally means “a group of women coming together.”
Lesbians and astronomers and auto nerds all at once? Sometimes, the stars align: Subaru really was destined for this.
Do you want more delightful & queer Subaru coverage? Trick question, I know you do, so treat yourself… Listen to this Planet Money episode by NPR.
A note for my LGBTQ friends…
So, I low-key mangled the language here, right? It was hard to explain in a way most car fans would understand that “lesbian” is not exactly the same as “sapphic” and like some girls call themselves “gay” but not every lady-who-likes-ladies likes to be called that, and queer could describe lesbians but it could also mean genderqueer and…
Oh god, I’m rambling. Anyway, I just wanted y’all to know, I told this story from a place of love. Love y’all. I’m not always the best with the language (ironic, given that I’m writing as the world’s worst automotive journalist). I found the history fascinating and I wanted to share it.
Oh and… this sort of hurts to share, but that’s why I want to share it. I was hanging out with my buddy and her wife. And they just casually drop on me that they are seeing a lawyer. And I’m like “what, why?” I’ve done hoodrat stuff where I suddenly needed a lawyer, but they definitely do not, so I was not sure what the problem was.
They wanted a lawyer to firm up their marriage documents, because they were scared that their marriage would be invalidated by some new B.S. coming down the pipeline from Washington. And just, god, I started low-key almost-crying in the bar, I’m not the sort of person who cries in public, no judgement if you are, but I am not. Here I was, welling up, and it hurt pretty bad.
They’re the cutest couple you ever seen, and they very much love each other, and anybody with 3 brain-cells to rub together can tell that they are inseparably a family. The fact that they were worried about someone ruining it for them in this year 2025, it just really busted me up.
So, I wanted to tell that story… if you’re hurting today, you’re not alone. But you are loved!
All the best,
– Kay Leadfoot
