IIHS Safety Awards: Subaru Scores Triple Win

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has recognized three Subaru vehicles with its highest safety accolade. The 2022 WRX, 2023 Legacy, and the 2023 Outback, all recently rolled away with Top Safety Pick+ awards.

The WRX, a small car, and the Legacy and Outback, both midsize cars, mastered six crashworthiness tests — capturing good scores in each evaluation. These included the driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, original side, roof strength, and head restraint tests.

But the rigorous criterion for garnering “plus” status doesn’t end there. Vehicles must also be available with a front crash prevention system that earns advanced or superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations. Moreover, good or acceptable headlights must be standard across all trims.

The trio of Subarus met IIHS’ exacting standards.

The redesigned WRX offers an optional front crash prevention system that earns superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations. The updated Legacy and Outback do even better — both come with standard front crash prevention systems that earn superior ratings in the two required tests.

As for headlights, the WRX’s Limited and GT trims come with curve-adaptive LED projector headlights that earn a good rating, while the static LED projectors that come with the Base and Premium trims are rated acceptable. IIHS notes that this marks an improvement over the 2021 model, which was passed over for the “plus” because lower trims were equipped with poor-rated halogens.

Finally, both the updated Legacy and Outback earned good-rated headlights across all trim, giving Subaru everything it needed to score a triple win for the most coveted safety award in the industry.