The Subaru B9 Tribeca transports the double-wraparound cockpit design from a car of the future into today's reality. More important, this newish SUV (based on Subaru Legacy underpinnings) contains a ton of useful technology fronted by a great navigation system, and a couple of quirks (hey, it's a Subaru), starting with a front end that's reminiscent of an Alfa Romeo and rounded, almost bulbous rear corners.

On the whole, the B9 Tribeca is a successful first entry into the SUV arena by a company with modest ambitions – to be at the top of the second tier of Japanese automakers, meaning second only to the Toyota-Honda-Nissan triumvirate.

Subaru teamed up with Kenwood for navigation systems across the line, and it's a good fit; Kenwood is close to industry leaders Alpine, Xanavi, and Denso for ease of use. The high-mounted touchscreen works well, though it's a long reach for those who don't drag their knuckles. With navigation, you get a backup camera; backup sonar is available ($325), but on our car it was often fooled into false alerts, adding to an already high amount of cockpit beeps. Other technology includes vehicle stability control, traction control, intelligent all-wheel drive, and run-flat tires.

The dashboard and center stack (middle console area) constitutes a curving peninsula that separates driver from passenger with the efficiency of the good sisters working the gym at a parochial school mixer. You may like the design, or you may find it intrusive. It does give the designers more sloped space to array buttons and switchgear; this is the polar opposite of a minimalist iDrive-style cockpit.

There are plenty of entertainment options: a six-disc changer and nine speakers in the higher-end Limited Edition, XM Satellite Radio (this is the first Subaru to offer satellite), and a line-in jack. The base-model B9 Tribeca has a single-disc changer and six speakers.

At $1,800, the widescreen back-seat DVD player is not competitively priced; besides, if you lose the remote, there's no other way to control the unit. I actually peg the price at $3,500, because to pay $1,800 for a DVD player that's not much different from one that a good audio installer would charge $900 for, you must select the three-row, seven-passenger B9 Tribeca model, which runs $1,700 more than the two-row, five-passenger B9. But as we said, if the car didn't have little idiosyncrasies, it wouldn't be a Subaru.

The shorter the story, the better the B9 Tribeca fares in the hands of reviewers. Its positives are clear-cut, and the downsides are the sum of a dozen small quirks not normally worth mentioning. But how small and quirky are they?

The lettering on the steering-wheel buttons is slanted and low-contrast by day, and not well lit by night; eventually you'll learn what each button does. Then there's the tiny triangle of glass just back of the A (windshield) pillar. That's a common styling cue in an era of steeply raked windshields and thick-for-safety A-pillars, done to good effect in a Honda Civic or Toyota Prius and providing extra visibility. But Subaru's is too small to do much good. And the quick-access buttons for the nav system are on the same level vertically as the bottom of the display, but about 6 inches back on a shelf on the dash.

Every car beeps more than it should when starting out, as if you weren't nagged—correction, reinforced—enough by your parents and later in life by your spouse or partner. Subaru goes to annoying extremes: All the beeps have a similar, irritating pitch rather than a melodious chime; some come, go, and come back again (like the seat belt warning); and the backup sonar seemed easily tricked into imagining obstacles that didn't appear to be there, especially when I backed down slopes.

The whole backup sonar setup seems slapped together; the beeper module is visible and bolted into the right side of the cargo area, and the four sensors project from the back bumper, which makes them look like easy targets for a parking-lot incident. That's too bad, because sound and video together make for the safest backup experience.

Subaru's Web site, like the car itself, is no-nonsense. While there are flashy elements, Subaru.com devotes itself to the possibility that you're online because you want to buy a car, not because you want to be dazzled by animation wizardry. So the build-your-own section is straightforward, aided by the modest number of options. But the options that came on my test vehicle, a early 2007 seven-passenger B9 Tribeca, weren't listed on the site, either as options or as accessories (the latter typically meaning they'd be dealer-installed).

The owners' section has the usual excessive marketing pitches disguised as valuable owner information. Both the owner manual and navigation system manuals are online, which is more than most sites provide. If you register and enter your VIN number, Subaru can populate the site with your actual service information, something only a handful of others, such as GM, offer. That's useful. So are e-mail service reminders, though they are based on the mileage you project when you first sign up.

There's only so much you can do in an SUV that's 190 inches long. The B9 Tribeca is nicely finished inside, but the middle row is a bit snug, and the third row is for hobbits; among similar vehicles, only the Audi Q7 has a tinier, less practical third row.

A lot of equipment comes standard: stability control, full-time all-wheel drive, tire pressure monitors, a power moonroof, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and (on seven-passenger models) heated front seats.

Some may find the suspension stiff (though ground clearance is good) and the transmission indecisive. Going up hills, you definitely hear the six-cylinder, 250-horsepower engine working, and the car shifts gears repeatedly searching for a better combination.

Overall, Subaru's first SUV is a winner, if you like the styling inside and out, and don't mind a few offbeat elements. Just don't look for it to carry more than four toilet-trained people in comfort.

For a review of the Subaru Legacy, click here.

Play Slide Show/All Shots (11)

$31,320.00 - $40,300.00

A reasonable medium-large SUV with lots of tech goodies, led by the navigation system. The cockpit layout and the exterior design are a matter of taste.

Touch-screen navigation system. Backup camera and sonar. All-time four-wheel drive, good ground clearance. Stability control standard on all models. Satellite radio (finally). No-nonsense Web site.

$1,800 DVD player. Excessive beeps, exacerbated by gullible backup sonar. Oddball touchscreen prompts. Snug middle row, munchkins-only third row. Busy transmission, stiff ride. Web site doesn't map to available options.