clairepowers

I need to replace my trusty old Loyale which was totalled in the middle of the night while parked in front of my house! I want to get a used (probably Outback) wagon. Since I have a son who is a new driver I'm thinking that, all things being equal, side air bags would be a good thing. I don't know if statistics bears this out. I don't know how to find crash data on older cars. Despite repeated calls to several Subaru dealers I have been unable to find this out: What year were side air bags first available (and I think it was on the Limited)? What year were they made standard on all models? My goal is to spend something under $13K--any suggestions? Claire