RS Finds a New Home

Sometimes when you buy a car you think "Man, I'm gonna keep this forever and never let it go".  That was the case for my 1999 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS.  I remember picking it up in Detroit Lakes Minnesota after it had made the 22-hour journey from Washington State by way of Tino Fortunato and his All Fours Rally Team and thinking that very thing.  One year later and the story has changed all over again, but I think it's the right move.

A few weeks ago, the Subaru Stars aligned in a very odd way.  A good friend of mine had been in an accident with his older Legacy and insurance had totaled it.  He was looking for a car to replace it and I knew of a 2006 Subaru Baja Turbo that had just been traded in to the Subaru retailer that I work at.  When I mentioned it to him, he said "if I were to buy anything from ya, I'd want that RS."  That got me thinking.

When I bought my 2016 WRX STI two years ago, I've pretty much had two of the same kind of car.  Both my 2.5 RS and my STI were manual transmission sports cars, neither of which my wife could drive.  Neither really worked well to go run errands with or load stuff into and, if I ever needed to steal my wife's Forester to pick up something too big for my cars, she'd be stuck at home with two cars she couldn't drive.  So when he asked about buying my RS, things started to make sense.  Adding an automatic Baja to our Subaru family would still be fun to drive but be more practical to work with.  Plus, of the short list of people I would ever trust this gem-of-a RS with, he'd be one of them.

While I loved driving the RS everywhere, I knew it was the right thing to do and that he was the right person to own it.  We figured stuff out pretty easily and, after I had fixed a few things I hadn't had time to tackle yet, he brought the family over to take it home.  It made me proud that my mentor and friend was so excited to get into a Impreza RS like the one he had owned before, and even more proud to know that maybe the next generation will get to enjoy this Subaru classic.