The Subaru Baja is a light-utility, all-wheel-drive, four passenger, four-door, open-bed vehicle manufactured from 2003-2006 by Subaru

Subaru

; is the automobile manufacturing division of Japanese transportation conglomerate Fuji Heavy Industries .Subaru is internationally known for their use of the boxer engine layout popularized in cars by the Volkswagen Beetle and Porsche 911, in most of their vehicles above 1500 cc as well as...

. The Baja combines the handling and passenger carrying characteristics of a car with the open-bed versatility, and to a lesser degree, load capacity of a pickup truck.

The unibody design borrowed heavily from the existing mechanicals, platform

Automobile platform

An automobile platform is a shared set of common design, engineering, and production efforts, as well as major components over a number of outwardly distinct models and even types of automobiles, often from different, but related marques...

 and sheetmetal of the Legacy

Subaru Legacy

The Subaru Legacy is a mid-size car built by the Japanese company Fuji Heavy Industries, and manufactured by its division Subaru since 1989, and is available as a sedan or wagon. Part of the original design goals for the Legacy model was to provide Subaru a vehicle in which they could compete in...

 and Outback

Subaru Outback

The Subaru Outback is a station wagon manufactured by Fuji Heavy Industries since 1995. Its original concept originated with Subaru of America, which was suffering from slumping sales in the mid-1990s partly due to a lack of an entry in the then-burgeoning sport utility vehicle market...

 wagons.