She cursed as she hit the bumper of the pickup behind us, jumped her car forward into the rear lights of a Subaru wagon, and came to a halt a foot from the curb.

She does not want or need a Ken doll, but if you purchase the Subaru wagon, you get a rainbow flag sticker, free.

The fanciest Subaru wagon, the Outback L. L. Bean edition, is also competitive in features and price.

"The night I met him, he and his five suite mates wanted to go someplace in Massachusetts to buy a 'Space Invaders' game," said Ms. Forbes, who drives a Subaru wagon.

So why, come August, do we pack our two children and our dog and way, way too much stuff into our Subaru wagon and take a grueling, 16-hour drive north?

Tom and Joan Kelsch of Arlington, Va., stick to their sole car, a Subaru wagon, with the help of the Washington-region Metro.

"At that price," he said, "people start comparing with the Subaru wagon, which is $3,000 less, or they discover they can get something much bigger for about the same money."

They described to Gliddon the Subaru wagon and the old Buick, and told him how they had searched through both without finding anything of interest.

Another important new product for 2004, the CrossTrainer, a blend of a station wagon and S.U.V., could be the first Big Three vehicle to compete with Subaru wagons.

He went in his girlfriend's car, an early 1980's Subaru wagon, with his partner as a passenger.