Every summer, my wife, Joan, and I look ahead and plan to make the drive from our Duluth home down the South Shore to Bayfield, Wis., once or twice if we see some concerts we’d like to see at BigTop Chautaugua, just south of Bayfield. We always try to coordinate it when I’m test-driving a car, such as a hybrid, that might get exceptional fuel economy because the trip, on good 2-lane highways, gives us a good chance to measure.

So we were, basically, underwhelmed when we were scheduled to spend a week with a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Sport on the same week when our younger son, Jeff, sent us mail-order tickets to attend the Molly Tuttle concert at Big Top. He had seen her act out near Bellingham, Wash., and was sure we’re enjoy her show, so he packaged the tickets as a combined Father’s Day and Joan’s birthday gift.

The intense green paint job on the Crosstrek was accented with a seemingly bizarre bright yellow striping along the lower rocker panels and wrapping up and over the front and rear. It was bright enough that I thought it might glow in the dark, or at least reflect lights, but no, it simply stood out and helped bring the green to higher life.

The same color scheme followed inside the Crosstrek, where heavy-duty cloth seat fabric and the dash, door and console panels also wore bright yellow trim. We didn’t find it objectionable, in fact we appreciated the Subaru the more we drove it — partly because it drove and handled so well. 
Various sedans and larger SUVs fill Subaru’s showrooms, but the Crosstrek is a well-designed compact SUV with well proportioned lines and contours. It looks ready for the rugged terrain, but for certain it is smooth and poised on highways, such as what we encountered.

It turned out to be a perfect day. We set out early enough that we’d get to Bayfield, which is one of the Upper Midwest’s most scenic little towns, complete with wooded hills, numerous trendy shops to wander around to, and a beautiful little harbor filled with docked sailboats, and serving as a base for ferry boats that run a constant shuttle back and forth to Madeline Island for both residents and tourists. 

They also have a couple good restaurants, coffee shops, and ice cream shops, for added inspiration in your walkies

Getting across the bridge from Duluth to Superior is the biggest challenge in these days of constant construction, then we head south on Hwy. 53, branching off on Wisconsin Hwy. 13 headed more directly east, staying closer to Lake Superior.

When we got to Bayfield and I parked on the town’s main street, somebody yelled, “Hey, great color.” Others stopped to comment on the color as we tried to get walking. 

I’m a fan of dark green cars, and I actually dislike light greenl and boring greens, and I must admit this Subaru Crosstrek came in Alpine Green, dark enough to make a favorable impression, and bright enough with a lot of metallic highlights to draw compliments — every time we stopped. 

One fellow getting out of his car across the street, said, “Isn’t it amazing what they can do with colors nowadays?”

My other concern about the Crosstrek — which I have always liked — is that Subaru’s flat-opposed 4-cylinder engines have never been fuel economy knockouts. They might attain 30 miles per gallon if you keep the speed moderated under the limit, but the 2.5-liter Boxer engine in the all-wheel-drive Crosstrek test vehicle was listed on the price sticker for reaching a high of 33 miles per gallon in highway driving, and a more reachable 26 mpg in city driving, for an overall figure of 29.

We kept the speed below 65 all the way down and back, and the Crosstrek cornered and handled superbly, while never warning us it needed more fuel. We made it down and all the way back, and after spending the rest of the week in mostly city driving, our average for the whole week was 33.7 miles per gallon.

That, in a word, was spectacular. Particularly because I wasn’t pampering the car on our drive, and there were places where bursts of acceleration were not only appropriate but enjoyable. So getting more than 33 mpg was a pleasant surprise, especially on regular gas.

The other pleasant surprise was that equipped with all the contemporary safety stuff and driving support features didn’t send the price over the moon. Base price was $28,995, and as tested it was $32,605 — both in the moderate price range, when you look at the features.

Advanced cruise with lane-centering, all-wheel drive, Lineartronic CVT with 8 driving steps built in and manual shift mode with paddles, LED headlights and foglights with adaptive headlights that bend to where you’re steering, and an enormous center-dash information screen that is large enough to hold about a hundred different readings, which are all intuitively placed. 

Dynamic ventilation and air filtration system, and heated bucket seats that are more comfortable and supportive than those on many more expensive vehicles.