It started with a $5 bill. I didn’t have $1 on me, so I bought it for $5 instead.

My friend Joe’s family bought this car new back in 1981 and drove it into the early 2000s when they decided they were tired of putting money into repairs. Joe’s dad was co-coach with my soccer team, so I saw it frequently, and it reminded me of the 1986 Subaru GL Wagon my dad had when I was younger. Joe’s family knew I was mildly obsessed with their car so when they were ready to let it go, it came into my family. The car had an issue where it would turn off going around right-hand turns, the suspension was very worn down, the brakes needed work, and the tires were not very good. However, it always started and it got me to school. I parked in either a very narrow spot in the road or only this car would fit, or in a mud bog that I knew I could drive out of because of the 4WD. During high school, I drove this car to Krispy Kreme, on dates, and all around my town as long as it ran decently enough. However, when I went to college, I decided I needed the $600 instead and I let it go.

I regretted that decision immediately.

Over the years, I tried to purchase it back, and had a couple opportunities to buy similar vehicles but nothing was quite the same. Moving into 2016, I had the opportunity to purchase another vehicle from my past, I want to buy my good friend Spencer, an original Subaru from his family as well; Subaru Justy. Spencer drove this vehicle in high school, and I drove it frequently as well because we worked together as broadcasters for the high school sports teams. I have this car for a couple months but still held hope that I would find the Subari again.

2016 was a fabulous year for me. I got engaged just before the year started, I landed a job at Oregon State University, I bought a house, and was moving to a small town. However, money was really tight. Between the down payment on the house and my wife’s custom ring, I was not able to do many car projects. And that that moment is when I found the 1981 Subaru on Craigslist.

The exact car, it was hard to believe, was just about 15 minutes away from my house. I took my fiancé out to go see it and sure enough, that was it. There were a couple telltale signs of dents that I put into it, modifications I had made, and it still had the same license plate. The seller has a vehicle for 11 years and built it to be in Overlander, as reliable as possible. Absolutely everything in the car had been built (or rebuilt) to be as reliable as possible. I went on a short test drive and I knew that I wanted it, but I wasn’t sure how the finances were going to work. That’s when my beautiful fiancé, now wife, bought it for me.

We started making memories in the car by going on fun trips around where we moved in Albany, and we went to summit motorsports events as well. The car came with lots of parts that were eventually installed onto the car including a weber carburetor and an upgraded four speed (instead of 4 speed) gearbox. It came with a limited slip rear differential that also was installed. The car was starting to become the vehicle that I had always dreamed about!

A couple years later we adopted a wonderful dog name Bear, a 10 year old German shepherd mix who LOVED this car. I would put the seats down in the back and he would go on drives with me wherever, off-roading, just on a pleasure cruise, he was there with me a lot. Then, our son Noah was born and he liked playing in the car and found a way to safely attach his car seat. As Bear was getting older, I wanted to make sure that there was a day that I would be able to go on a drive with both him and Noah at the same time. This happened a couple times before Bear passed away. I will never forget those short drives around town all together.

The story of how I sold the car and then got it back got picked up by Hagerty Insurance in 2017. They used to have a program with their customers that submitted cars into a “Car of the Week”, “Car of the Month”, then “Car of the Year” – I couldn’t believe that we won this award in 2018. This was also the last year of this program. They brought a professional film crew out from Michigan to create one of the coolest videos I’ve ever seen, you can take a look at it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWYghOqfA68

During the same weekend the film crew came out, I went to an event called the Taste of Motorsports and won the People’s Choice Award as well – beating out an incredible Lamborghini Countach, and my car was featured inside the now defunct “World of Speed” museum, parked next to a $1 million Ford RS 200. Yeah, that was a good weekend.

Over the years, I noticed that the engine was starting to smoke a little bit after several of our adventures together and I decided to swap in a more modern Subaru engine from a 1995 Legacy. This was a really common swap for several years, so I was able to find a local shop who had an adapter plate between the EA transmission and the EJ motor. The donor car that I purchased was fairly inexpensive because it was leaking so much oil that it wasn’t possible to drive it more than about 10 minutes. However, it was one of the few that I could find with less than 200,000 miles on it and it was close to the shop that did the swap. Unfortunately, once the motor was out of the donor vehicle, the cylinder walls were inspected, and it was discovered they were scored – meaning the engine was not usable as-is. I had a couple of options, but I decided to use the engine I was there but needed to be fixed. I saw this as an opportunity to make some performance upgrades, including increasing the engine size from 2.2 to 2.4 liters and installing forged internals. If I ever want to turbo the engine, it’ll be more than happy to run boost!

There were a couple of things that need to be fixed after the new engine was in, but thankfully I was able to take the vehicle right away on a couple Gambler 500 trips, and other offroad trips around Oregon. My wife and I still go on dates in it together, and we take our son whenever we can. The new engine I would describe as quick, but not necessarily fast. It feels about as fast as a modern vehicle, but in such a small package, it creates a very unique and fun driving experience. At this point, it really doesn’t need much besides a CX axel that is slowly dying (normal for Subaru), and rock sliders to be installed to protect the body from further dents on future trips.

I’m incredibly grateful that even though I once let this one go, I have it back.