Junkyard Find, Denver Style: So Many Old Subarus!

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Every time I do a Junkyard Find with a Subaru (for example, the ’79 BRAT we saw yesterday), I mention the large numbers of other old Subarus to be found in the same yard. How many? Well, at the Denver U-Pull-&-Pay (where I found the BRAT), I decided to walk through the entire Imports section and get a photograph of every Subaru from the early 1990s or earlier.

Colorado is the most Subaru-centric place I’ve ever seen, by a big margin. Hell, even I have an Outback in my personal fleet, and I’ve never for a moment believed in the myth of Subaru reliability. With so many Subies on the street, it stands to reason that you’ll find tons of them awaiting digestion by The Crusher.

So, in addition to the BRAT and a certain early-90s Subaru that I’m saving for a later post, the count of two-decade-or-older Subarus at this yard stands at nine (though a couple of these Leones might have sneaked in from mid-90s territory, they’re based on the late-80s version).

This means that cheapskate owners of elderly Subarus are in good shape when they go parts shopping, with better selection of components than even the embarrassment-of-riches 1980s Tercels and Civics.





Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 34 comments
  • MRF 95 T-Bird MRF 95 T-Bird on May 24, 2012

    It's a shame there was never a Brat version of the 85-91 Loyale wagon.

  • NoGoYo NoGoYo on May 24, 2013

    I know a guy who has basically a XT with a wagon body, which I didn't know existed. I assume the 1987 GL Turbo AWD is just a wagon XT...

  • Canam23 I had a 2014 GS350 that I bought with 30K miles and the certified unlimited four year warranty. After four and a half years I had 150K miles on it and sold it to Carmax when I moved to France a little over two years ago. As you can see I ran up a lot of work miles in that time and the Lexus was always quick, comfortable and solid, no issues at all. It was driving pretty much the same as new when I let it go and, and, this is why it's a Lexus, the interior still looked new. I bought it for 30K and sold it for 16K making it the most economical car I've ever owned. I really miss it, if you have to drive a lot, as I did in my job, it is the perfect car. Some may argue the Camry or Accord would foot that bill, but I say nay nay, you really want the comfort and rear wheel drive of the Lexus. Keep it forever Corey, you won't regret it.
  • SCE to AUX "...if there’s enough demand"If they are only offered as electric to begin with, how will Stellantis gauge demand - unhappy customers demonstrating at the dealers with torches and pitchforks?What a great way to add cost and reduce competitiveness, by making a propulsion-agnostic platform with a hundred built-in compromises.
  • FreedMike Awfully nice car.
  • Cprescott So is this going to lie and tell you that they have quality products at affordable costs that won't get recalled?
  • SCE to AUX So they might continue gigacasting 3 pieces instead of 1. Tesla does gigacasting as a business advantage, so they aren't abandoning it. They probably ran into some tech challenge related to integrating 3 pieces into 1, so 3 will do.Meanwhile Toyota and several Chinese mfrs are adopting gigacasting because of Tesla.
Next