Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
MY first encounter with a Subaru took place several years ago when my eldest son insisted on a kit car for his birthday.
They were all the rage in the village and he and his school friends used to race them along the footpaths and around the car parks with great skill and agility.
And, they had to be the king of rally racing - Subaru - nothing-else would do.
The models were not only cool and in demand in the UK, so were the real things.
So much so, that the motoring correspondent on the daily newspaper I worked on at the time would personally drive nothing but a Subaru.
Now this man was the ultimate "car nerd". Manufacturers, dealers and garages queued up to deliver their latest models to him and despite him having a spanking new car to test on his driveway every weekend, the car in his garage was a Subaru.
And, he was a bit of a Subaru snob ... boasting about how he beat the waiting list to secure his dream machine and how he had put his name down for next year's version because it guaranteed him a certain price and he reckoned he could even sell it on for a profit second-hand.
Now, being a journalist, and a motoring one at that, he was probably exaggerating ... but he left enough doubt in my mind to think he knew he was on to a good thing.
So, it was with some excitement when MotorCity in Sitra called asking me to test drive the Subaru Legacy.
For one thing, I have spotted very few on the roads of Bahrain which is certainly strange for a kingdom which seems to have a love affair with Japanese brands of motor vehicles.
There was no chance of mistaking my Subaru for anything-else, mind you. The name was plastered all over the white coloured vehicle, which proved quite amusing when I paid the car park attendant a couple of hundred fils near the souq as he attempted several times to pronounce it.
Not the easiest of words for a Cockney, let alone a chap from Kerala in a cabin and suffering from sweat in his eyes from the midday sun.
Subaru is the automotive division of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (FHI), a comprehensive, multifaceted transport equipment manufacturer.
The first president of FHI, Kenji Kita, had some definite opinions on the subject of automobiles. "If you're going to build a car, build a full-fledged car. Japanese cars should have Japanese names."
Mr Kita was ardent about producing passenger cars and was the most passionate of all about the 1954 prototype of the company's first passenger car, the P-1.
Mr Kita canvassed the company for suggestions about naming the P-1, but none of the proposals were appealing. In the end, he gave the car a beautiful Japanese name that he had been quietly cherishing in his heart - Subaru.
Subaru is the name of a star cluster in the Taurus constellation. Six of its stars are visible to the naked eye, but about 250 bluish stars can be seen if one uses a telescope.
In the West the cluster is called Pleiades, in China, Mao, and in Japan, Subaru ("to govern" or "gather together").
In Japan, it also goes by the name Mutsuraboshi ("Six Stars"), under which title it appears frequently in very old Japanese documents such as Kojiki and Manyosyu and literature such as Makura-no-soshi.
Clearly, this is one of the clusters much loved by the Japanese from ancient times. Interestingly enough, FHI was created by the merger of six companies, so you can see what a truly evocative name Subaru is.
The Legacy proved pretty evocative too as I sat at the red lights at Tubli.
Imagine the scene, me in the middle lane, local boy racer in a racing red Toyota to my left and European business executive in a blue BMW on the right.
I left them both for dust.
My Subaru was away before the boy could finish squeezing a pimple on his nose and by the time the tycoon had put down his mobile phone.
Did it feel good? You bet.
There is no mistaking the Subaru has that rally driving feel about it, from the moment you sink into the driving seat and press your foot down on the pedal.
It is a very cool car to drive. The handling is as good as you get as my car-nerdy friend was forever informing me - the standard equipped symmetrical all-wheel drive system is currently unique to the Legacy in this class size of vehicle.
In the US market, the Legacy competes with the Toyota Camry, the Honda Accord and the Nissan Altima.
German automaker Volkswagen, the parent owner of Audi, produces both the Audi A4 Quattro 4-cylinder and Volkswagen Passat 4motion V6, however, the AWD is an extra cost option on both vehicles.
The Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Avenger and Ford Fusion can also be equipped with AWD for the US market, but it too is an extra cost option only on the upper level V6 models.
As the company proudly boasts the original concept of Subaru All-Wheel Drive has been derived directly from the World Rally Championship experience and it "brings back the true joy of driving".
In rallies or on the road, Subaru's philosophy is to translate the driver's every wish directly into action, with cars that drive, corner and stop exactly as the driver wants.
Without question it does just that and at a price my British friend would probably choke on seconds before booking the next Gulf Air flight to Bahrain.
The Legacy can be bought here for between BD7,500 and BD8,900 ... and the same set of wheels will set you back around £24,000 (BD17,800) back in dear old Blighty, according to my garage-owning brother-in-law in Devon.
I can see Sabaru making quite an impact in the kingdom in the near future, particularly as there are talks of plans to open a new dedicated showroom near the Al Abraaj restaurant by the Sanad-Riffa signals in September.
Meanwhile, I should head on down to MotorCity and test one before the rush ...
