My wife and I are interested in a Baja to replace her Ranger pickup. She travels a lot in her job and the extra comfort and safety of the Baja plus the ability to pick weekend garden suppplies are just what she wants. We drove a Sport yesterday and she really liked it except for the, IMO, overdone Pontiac style cladding. I've been looking at it and wondered if anybody has de-cladded one (on purpose or not). If so how are the panels held on and are the steel doors and fenders completely painted as I suspect they are. It looks like you could use regular Outback parts for everything except the rear bumper cover. I wish the Sport was really "stripped" like that from the factory.

why not get it in all silver? and i believe theyr'e held on by pins of some type(plastic?)

monkey-

We did ask the dealership to be on the lookout for a silver Sport program car. That does minimize the contrast. In the end you drive it from the inside and aren't looking at it so we will probably just get used to it. Now I wish there was a Sport model with an NA version of the new 2.5 twin cam engine making about 185 HP. Kind of a "BS" (a la RS) version of the turbo. Let me be a Subaru product planner. :lol:

if you take the cladding off, it's REALLY horrible... there's not much of a body to speak of under it all, just some wierd sheetmetal to catch all the pins...

we've got a colormatched one in yellow here at the dealer.

sjd

decladding will be a problem cuz well....what are u gonna replace the bumper covers with? :confused:

I think you could use an Outback or standard Legacy front cover but the rear would be a problem because of the tailgate shape. I could wait and hope that Subaru will offer a next gen Baja without cladding the way Chevy did with this year's Avalanche. Or just get a current one a paint the cladding like Subaru of Gwinnett did.