Livery service can be lucrative work, given all the weddings, proms, and bro-parties there are around. Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Subaru brings some added weirdness to that work as it’s one of the most unexpected limos you might find. Let’s decide whether its price is anything worth celebrating.
The tallest man in recorded history was Robert Wadlow, who, at his untimely death at age 22, towered eight feet, eleven and a half inches tall. While appearing lanky in pictures, Wadlow was deceptively heavy; his great height hid his weight of over 400 pounds. Most notable, however, was that the hypertrophy of his pituitary gland didn’t just cause his abnormal height, it also resulted in excessive growth of his arms and legs, giving him an oddly disproportionate appearance.
It’s safe to say that, by the age of ten, Robert Wadlow would have been hard-pressed to fit in the tight confines of the 1986 Zimmer Quicksliver we considered yesterday. Both he and the car, though, shared a similar sense of disproportion in their looks, with the Fiero-based Quicksilver having been lengthened in both nose and butt over its donor car. A V8 transplant couldn’t overcome those audacious proportions or the car’s overall appearance, and at $12,950, you all sent it packing with a 68% No Dice loss.
New York City
Think about all the cars and trucks named for famous places. Just at Chevy, there have been the Monte Carlo, Malibu, and Tahoe, to name a few. Ferrari, expressing its status as an uncompromising carmaker, once named a model after the entire state of California. Sometimes those car names make sense—they elicit a mood or are connected to a location in some way. Other times, a choice of location as a car name can be a bit of a head-scratcher.
That’s pretty much the case with the naming choice on today’s 2007 Subaru B9 Tribeca. The only non-weird part of the name is the marque, Subaru, which I think we can all agree is a better choice than using the company’s parent brand name, Fuji Heavy Industries. After that, however, the car’s name gets a bit more inscrutable. The B9 part is something that Subaru was toying with for its entire lineup—the B standing for “Boxer” indicating the company’s choice of pancake engines for its cars, and the 9 denoting the placement in the model range. Subaru abandoned this scheme halfway through the Model’s run, and never applied it to any other car in its lineup. The Tribeca name is less cryptic, but perhaps more odd since there is no apparent connection between the New York City neighborhood and the car, other than Subaru execs thinking it sounded cool. It’s perhaps cooler than the name of the Tribeca’s replacement, which the company anointed the “Assent.”
Business in front, party in the back
There’s more to this B9 Tribeca than just a weird name, though. Much more. This car has been converted into a limousine via a cut-and-stretch insert that adds approximately four feet between its front and rear doors. This was apparently the brainchild of Ernie Boch Jr., a Boston-area Subaru dealer, who pitched the idea to Fuji Heavy Industries executives at a meeting and persuaded the company to build the car on the standard Tribeca line at Subaru’s plant in Lafayette, Indiana. The interior was designed by a coachbuilder outside of Subaru, but the joint endeavor appears to have been well executed.
The front cabin is stock Tribeca, but that’s separated from the romper room by a solid panel and what appears to be a retractable glass panel. In the back, there’s seating for seven (or more, if laps are taken into account), stereo, TVs, and a mini bar. Sadly, there’s no moon roof out of which inebriated revelers can poke their heads and make bad decisions. It all looks to be in great condition and surprisingly not tacky for a limo—thankfully, no accommodation was made for a stripper pole.
So many questions
Power for the Tribeca comes from a 3.0-liter flat-six engine, which, from the factory, made 245 horsepower and 215 pound-feet of torque. Mated to that is a five-speed automatic and—on a standard car—AWD with a torque-sensing viscous center differential.
This raises the question of what was done with the AWD when this limo went down the line. Is it still intact, with an incredibly long and likely very challenging-to-balance prop shaft? Or was it abandoned in light of the effort needed to make it work?
That mystery isn’t answered in the ad. In fact, there’s no information about the car AT ALL offered in the ad. It only says:
“2007 Subaru B9 Tribeca Limo come check it out!”
There’s no mileage given, nor title status. To be fair, it is listed on Facebook Marketplace, which is the classified ad equivalent of a border town swap meet. As noted, the pictures do show the car to be in decent shape, with no apparent issues in the bodywork, cabin, or party room.
Working for a living
An important question regarding this Tribeca limo is, “Where am I going to park this thing?” Another question is, “How much money could I make as a limo driver with it?” This isn’t just a car, it’s a potential money maker. Or, it could make for the coolest parent in the school carpool. Either way, we now need to decide if it’s worth the $8,995 investment in its purchase.
What do you think? Is this Tribeca Limo worth $8,995 as it currently stands? Or is there not enough information in the ad to pull the trigger?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Facebook Marketplace out of Salisbury, Massachusetts, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Christian Klein for the hookup!
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