Old School Crossover: 1995 Subaru Impreza WRX Gravel Express
Visit a car dealer today (don’t forget your mask) and you’ll be greeted with a platter of “lifestyle” vehicles for the youth crowd that promote light off-roading, snowboarding, hiking, and generally being outdoorsy. These crossovers are mostly a marketing gimmick and are covered with cheesy dealer bolt ons…but there was a time when you could go into a Subaru dealer (in Japan) and drive out with something called the WRX Gravel Express. It starts with the competent GF8 Impreza chassis with the EJ20 WRX turbo flat-4 and adds an awesome bull-bar up front and rear mounted spare tire out back, lifted suspension, and finally the GRAVEL EX graphic stripe on the side. Find this 1995 Subaru Impreza WRX Gravel Express bidding for $11,799 reserve-not-met located in El Monte, CA via ebay.
From the seller:
Stock #:7942
Exterior Color:Blue
Interior Color:Blue
Body Type:Wagon
Transmission:Manual
Drivetrain:AWD
Engine:EG20 Turbo
Title Condition:Clear
Vehicle Description
////// Japanese VIN on the car, check with your state DMV how to register this car before purchase, please/////// ASK US THE SHIPPING QUOTE/////////////////////READ FULL DESCRIPTION PLEASE.////////////////////////////
RIGHT-HAND DRIVE (EXPORT CERTIFICATE/JAPANESE TITLE AND CBP FORMS 7501 and 3461, NHTSA HS-7, EPA PAPERWORK ON HANDS). CA buyers can use it on private property, Island, farms – registration is not required.
60000mi (98000km) very clean. No leaks, no other problems. Recently legally imported from Japan.
These vehicles can not be registered in California until brought into California compliance (check your STATE REGULATION, please, before BID).
Please ask us if you need information. Please be aware CA sales tax, CA buyers only. Please, visit our auto parts website and eBay store “jdmallmakes1” we sell auto parts for Right-Hand Drive and Left-Hand Drive vehicles as well we can bring any parts for any cars, classic, exotic, sport from JAPAN. Also available another right-hand drive low miles Japanese Domestic Market classic and sports vehicles such as Nissan Skyline, Honda Beat, Mini, Toyota Sera, Toyota Aristo, Honda Prelude, Toyota MR2, Nissan Pao, Mitsubishi GTO and etc.
VIN#GF8-017942
See a better way to drive a Gravel Express? tips@dailyturismo.com
Cool, but it would cost a lot less and cause far fewer headaches to just buy a domestic ’95 Impreza WRX and install a mild lift kit and bull bar. Sure, you lose the JDM street cred, but you also lose the title/registration woes and the aggravation of driving RHD on LHD roads.
First thing I’d have to do with this car is ditch the spare tire clamshell pod and move the loose spare to a newly installed safari rack on the roof. That would improve the Rally-wannabe look. What it has now is an afterthought that resembles a nerd’s backpack.
The 90s WRX was only sold in Japan – this car has a 260hp 2.0L turbo; at the time the best you could do in LHD markets was a 135hp 2.2L. In fact, even once the WRX started to be sold in the US in the next generation 2002-on, you still couldn’t get this much power in the wagon body. So you’d need to do a full engine swap to match this car. These are super rare – and remember, for context, this was before the Forester, before the Impreza Outback, and contemporaneous with the first Legacy Outback (but sold with the highest-power rally-spec engine offered by Subaru at the time)
I appreciate the info and I was unaware of the difference in motors (or the US timeframe for the WRX – I’m on the west coast where these things seem to have been around forever), but for me, I’d find other ways to spend the $12K and get 260hp.
I now see how this car is special, it just doesn’t excite me compared to other cars. For that money, there are so many other options without wacky spare tire holders that I’d consider. I’m curious to see if it gets any bids.
But the Gravel Express was a factory option — I think I’d want to keep it stock..even thought it might look ridiculous. However, if you did have a time machine, right after you use it to kill various infamous despots, you would then use it to convince the Gravel Express product planners to move that spare tire to the roof.