Hmm, can't speak to this cultural association# but in my experience, Subarus in the late-80's on the US West coast were these Japanese 4x4-only cars, arriving just before SUVs made it onto the scene. They've since become popular, practical, good-mileage vehicle if someone does mountain driving in winter. All-in-all, it was clever marketing on their part because the early days didn't have much advertising to speak of (and hence little/no-mindshare) but it's interesting to see one of the transitional steps (focusing on niche markets instead of competing with commodified-incumbents directly) needed to get from low-volume curiosity to mainstream brand.
# A stronger example of brand-to-culture association would be VW which, in my experience, is/was more strongly-associated with 60's counterculture.
EDIT: another article from 2016 https://priceonomics.com/how-an-ad-campaign-made-lesbians-fa...