A key attraction of the Subaru Legacy has been the GT trim, which offered a turbo four, manual transmission, and all-wheel-drive in a moderately priced almost midsize sedan. A flat six was also offered in recent years, but Subaru’s emphasis was on the turbo four.

I’ve added pricing for the 2010 Legacy to TrueDelta’s database, and price comparisons with the 2009 yield some interesting results.

Comparing the 2009 and 2010 Legacy GTs, the latter has a lower base price, but you have to add the Limited Package and a sunroof to make them truly comparable. Once you do that, the 2010 lists for over $2,000 more. Adjusting for feature differences narrows the gap by only about $200. Not promising.

On the other hand, the price difference is only about $800 after adjusting for feature differences with the 3.0 R vs. 3.6 R. They’re clearly pushing harder with the six now. It used to cost about the same as the GT. Now it’s a couple grand less–despite having a standard automatic transmission.

Notably, while the six has always only been available with an automatic, the Legacy GT is now only available with a stick. Combine this with the fact that the turbo four isn’t even offered in the 2010 Outback, and the writing is on the wall: the days of the turbo four in Subaru’s mid-sized cars are numbered. The new Legacy GT, with its higher price and unavailable automatic, won’t sell well. Then they’ll do what they’ve done with other slow-selling configurations in recent years, and kill it.

It seems Subaru now wants their midsize cars to be like everyone elses: manual and automatic with a naturally aspirated four, and automatic only with a six. Might they even start offering front-wheel-drive cars again?