It's casual american public, they killed fun estate cars by proxy and manual transmissions. 2.5 Spec B wasnt even offered on Estate version in US. It's mix of this laziness when it comes to transmissions and shift to goddamn SUVs when an estate would be perfect and actually more useful.
The 3rd generation legacy is the epitome of Subaru of America's cheapness and laziness. they went out of their way to redesign the 3rd generation legacy to make it uglier and lower quality than other markets, and as Gunma basically hand built these legacies with much nicer specifications and way more options, the Subaru plant of Lafayette, Indiana was pretty much completely automated. SoA's tooling was completely different as we didn't get the nice body molding of the general market and the USDM waste line wasn't as sharp and pronounced. Only the H6 outback got automatic climate control and we got just 3 engine options on all BH/BE/BT chassis, being the EJ251/2/9, EZ30D (Outback only), and turbo 253 (Baja only). We never got the Twin Turbo or the AVCS equipped EJs. VDC was a rare outback only option. I know a lot of people don't care about this gen but I think it's a real shame as I think the 3rd generation is the classiest Legacy generation and is extremely underrated.
It's got a linkage rod that connects into the transmission, common on longitudinal engine/transmission layouts. That's typical for it to move on this layout.
