I've actually owned 2 1973 Subaru DL station wagons...at the same time! One, my dad bought new off the dealer floor for $2300. There were two engine options available. The "big" engine was made by Briggs and Stratton, the smaller one was made by Maytag. He opted for the "big" engine. That little buggy would chirp or squeal the tiny tires in the first 3 gears! The second one, I bought for $300 in 1987. It was a running parts car (drove it home from Denver) to tear down and replace stuff on the other car (96k miles on it at that time) that were getting too expensive or impossible to find.
Front wheel drive cars were relatively rare back then. I'd slap a set of real studded snow tires on the car, and those tiny skinny tires would let me drive around 4WD Jeeps with fat studded snow tires on them that got stuck in deep snow blizzard situations. Independent axles in the rear-end allowed for a great advantage concerning cargo capacity on those tiny tired cars over their Detroit-made RWD station wagons. I actually did put my Kawasaki KZ400 street motorcycle (made in Omaha) in the back of my Subaru DL wagon to haul it, without having to lay the bike down to make it fit.

As to the GL series back then, having the spare tire under the hood, it really wasn't that bad of an idea. Engine heat doesn't always equal dry heat conditions. ....and besides, those tiny tires could be bought brand new, mounted and balanced with new valve stems, for about $16 each. The last pair of tires I bought for my Isuzu, $16 is more than what it cost just to balance them!