Project BRZ Intro

It’d been an interesting month or so since I sold the Alto, trying to work out what on earth my next project would be. Finally, It fell into my lap.

I knew the criteria. There were a few reasons to sell the Alto, and one of them was to experience a new platform on the track. I felt I had reached the limits of what that car could do without dumping a bunch of money into it for bigger turbos, new wheels and tires etc.

This meant I was looking to move away from FWD and get a RWD or AWD car. Being manual was non-negotiable. The other goal was to try and reduce the amount of money I had tied up in the Alto. That last one was actually much harder than I expected as all the “fun” cars had “fun” tax on them.

My options were really limited; An MX5, an Altezza or some sort of Subaru. Nothing else really fit the price range. So that’s where I started.

In terms of Subarus, I tried to avoid pre-Y2K as older than that involves 6 monthly WOFs, and I can’t be bothered with that, so that left with me Legacys or bug-eye onwards Impreza. Anything STI was out of the question, I couldn’t afford that performance, but it still had to be a turbo. The options for WRXs were limited. There were a few bug and blob WRXs floating around for a good price, but they all carried huge Ks (usually around 300,000km) with questionable histories and modifications. I didn’t want to buy a time bomb.

The uncertainty around these led me to look at the newer hatchback style Impreza, as they still came in turbo options, manual, AWD, and usually with lower Ks as they were newer.

My wife and I did a couple hour round trip to look at the first one. A black 2007 Impreza S-GT, the JDM narrow-body WRX.

It’d been for sale for a while, and the seller did advise that the last WOF had a note for underbody rust on the rear subframe, but otherwise the car was “all good”. The rust wasn’t too much of a worry as long as the rest of the body was solid, as I could wire brush and treat the subframe.

This car looked good from a distance, but as I walked toward it (from the rear), I immediately noticed really bad “orange peel” in the rear quarter panel. Being in the industry and having seen it all, this put me on alert straight away. The more I looked, the worse it was. Rust bubbling in the roof gutter at the rear, bad paintwork, rust starting on the boot floor where the rear panel pad been cut off and replaced (along with a tell tail paint pen “cut” line). The seller told us “oh yeah it had a small nudge in traffic a couple of years ago”. Yeah, his definition of “small nudge” might differ from mine, when it appears the whole rear end had been cut off and rebuilt. It probably wouldn’t be an issue for most people, but it would always bother me.

I took it for a quick drive anyway to see if it was worth the effort to fix it up, but although the 260hp and AWD felt nice, it just didnt really inspire me. The price was also too high considering the issues. I walked away.

Next was a New Zealand new version of the same car, a 2009 WRX, also in black. Long story short, this too had been in a rear shunt, with a misaligned tailgate, both rear quarters had been repainted, and there was a lovely patch of cracking bog above the rear wheel, with rust bleeding stains under it. I didn’t even drive this one, I just thanked her for her time and left.

As a change of scenery, I had been watch a listing for a 1993 WRX “Version 1” but hadn’t been able to get in touch with the seller before someone else bought it. This was an exception to the rule, I love these old GC8s but the prices are getting insane, so when it was relisted a little further up the coast for a similar price, I jumped to contact the seller.

Already alarm bells are ringing, why is he selling it so soon? He spun a story about needing the funds, but in truth I think he bought it without inspecting it and got stung and needed to offload it quickly.

One day after work I drove up the coast and went to view the car. I knew from the previous seller that there was some rust, and he had provided a couple of photos showing it was in the top of the front guard and in the rear door, both replacable panels, but he hadnt supplied photos of the rust in the boot he mentioned.

Viewing the car, the rust was far more extensive. In a quick look, I found a rust bubble in the front chassis rail, rust bubbling along the top edge of the rear guard, and worst of all, the seller pointed out the rust in the boot; basically the whole rain channel under the rear glass, on both sides where the hinges are, was made of bog. Cracking, badly painted and rusty bog. When I mentioned “heck, I didn’t think it’d be that bad”, the seller replied “neither did I”. Ouch. I walked at that point, you’d need to either reshell that car, or gut it and spend months cutting all the rust out and rebuilding it.

The final Subaru I looked at was another NZDM WRX hatch, this time in silver.

Much to my surprise, this one had also been crashed. I knew it was rough, and had a couple of dings, but it was priced well, so I could’ve overlooked those, but this one had a new curveball, rust. It wasnt huge, but there were definitely rust bubbles down the LH A-Pillar by the glass, and at the top of the hatch opening where the hinges are that someone had tried to paint over. When asking about things like cambelt and service history I got a lot of blank looks, so that didn’t bode well.

I took it for a quick drive to see how it went and it was fairly disappointing. The clutch feel was horrible, and the brakes had a massive shudder, so work was obviously needed in those places too.

I’m quickly finding out that these WRXs were often bought by families and are just “a car”, with little care given to what they are or how to properly look after them. It’s a shame.

So, whats next? The old Toyota Altezza was in the price range, and with 200hp on tap with a 6 speed manual and torsen LSD, they should be fairly fun. I’ve owned one before, and although it was a nice car to drive, it always felt a bit underpowered for the body, and wasnt that exciting. This lead me to consider a couple, but not bother looking at any.

Finally, it was MX5s. I looked at three. I’ll start with the one I walked away from as soon as I started it up; an ND1.

It’s a gorgeous car, and even the massive stupid wing didn’t look too bad in photos (although in person it looked 100x bigger). This had some seriously questionable mods though, one of which was a painted on Union Jack on the soft top (why). The worst though was the exhaust, which I don’t think had anything resembling a muffler. I got in, pressed the start button and was immediately greeted by the loudest car I have ever been in. My wife was standing just outside the open door, and I couldn’t hear her talking to me over the exhaust.

That exhaust, and the fact that the car was so small and cramped for my rather generous frame, meant that I had to walk away.

That left me with a pair of NCs. I’ve also previously owned an NC, and really enjoyed it, so knew one would go well as a track car.

Turners Damaged Auctions was the location of the first one, an early NC1 RS soft top. It had high Ks, appeared to have been sitting outside for ages, had some cosmetic issues, but otherwise if it went cheap enough I was prepared to fix it up and thrash the pants off it. Even if the engine was bad, I had planned to 2.5 swap it.

I went and viewed the car, since by some miracle it was at the local yard

Externally, it didn’t look too bad. The brown soft top needed some love, there was a ding in the RH rear arch, and the front bumper was… trash. The inside was pretty good too. Some wear, but with over 200,000km on it, it’s to be expected. It also had a broken front quarter window.

The underside is where it got a bit iffy.

It all appeared to be surface rust, but there would be a few hours worth of work under there scrubbing it with a wire wheel and then treating and painting it.

The auction rolled around, and with a fixed price limit in my mind, I was ready to hit the bid button. The bidding started and ended about a grand higher than my limit, so it wasn’t to be.

Interestingly about a week later it popped up on Facebook with a new reg and wof, a repainted front bumper, replaced window and dyed soft top for significantly more than he paid. Can’t argue with the hustle, at least he did some work to fix it, but I can’t help but wonder how much work he put into the underside, or if he just blasted paint right on over the rust.

Finally, the last NC I looked at was a PRHT NC1 at the infamous “shite car dumping ground” dealer

Everything about it was right. The colour, the spec, the power hard top, manual, LSD, cloth interior, and something like 130,000km. I jumped at the chance to view it bright and early the next morning.

They had it parked out front and center, where it was catching some attention, paint shining in the sun. After a good look around, issues were coming to light. The term “polished turd” was coming to mind. The tires, although good Michelins, were about 10 years old and hard as plastic. The engine was weeping oil in a couple of places under all the dealer spec shiny slime, and there was an excessive amount of wear in the interior for the Ks; it was ageing worse than both my old one and the Turners one above, which both had over 200,000km on them.

I jumped in and took it for a drive anyway, as I can fix all of that, for a price. The drive showed me three things; I like NCs a lot. The thermostat was stuck open so it never came to temp, and the rear shocks were poked. The slightest bump would have the rear of the car slamming violently down onto its bump stops. Horrible. I had the same issue with my old NC, and spent a not-insignificant amount to fit a pair of new shocks to fix it.

Pulling back in, the salesman comes up, beeming, practically rubbing his hands together after running them through his slicked back hair. His face dropped when I said its got a couple of serious issues, the thermostat is stuck open, the rear shocks are stuffed and the tires are borderline dangerous, would he work with me on a better price? “The boss drills into us every Monday not to drop prices” is what I got told. They “might” take it to a workshop and have them “look” at the thermostat and shocks, but I wouldnt count on either of them being fixed properly, if they even acknowdleged there was an issue. It’s no wonder they’re (proudly) sitting on a massive inventory of cars that never seem to sell.

I decided to leave it at that point. The price was too high, they were asking a premium price for a car that needed some significant work. If they would’ve worked with me to drop the price a grand or two, it would probably be in my driveway.

After viewing the other hunks of junk in the mean time, I actually went back to the dealer the other weekend, a couple of weeks after first seeing the car, with the full intention of dropping the asking price on it and driving away as it is. This time it was in their shed, under the artificial lighting. The more I looked at it, the worse it looked. The paint was fading and peeling in places, and it just didnt have that shine from last time. With a heavy heart, I walked away again.

Now, there is one other car that fits the criteria almost to a T. The Toybaru twins; the Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ. I had been writing these off as the prices were just too high. I couldn’t justify dropping $16-17K on a high KM one. The autos were cheaper, but stuff that.

These guys have the concept right. Modern, light weight (just over 1200kg), RWD, Manual, and a responsive 2L flat four “Boxer” engine. They were a collaboration between Toyota and Subaru. Both cars share the same basic shell, driveline and interior, but the differnet brands gave them different faces and trim levels. The BRZ is generally considered a bit more upmarket than the 86.

So, the other day whilst flicking through Marketplace, wading through all the trash, I spot a new listing for a 2012 BRZ. Oh, it’s manual. Price is pretty decent too; a bit lower than usual.

Within a couple of hours of it being listed, I had interrogated the seller, got sent a bunch more photos, and made a slightly silly offer, which had been accepted.

The seller was really upfront. It has 190,000km on the clock, so its lived a life and has some marks to tell it, but he sent me photos of every little mark inside and out. Anything I asked, he tried his best to answer.

A couple of days later, where I lived in a constant state of “he’s going to sell it out from under me”, he met me in the agreed town, about half way between where he and I lived. I look over it, take it for a quick drive, and deals done. We wait about… 2 hours for the bank to transfer the cash, and then we’re off home.

The two hour drive home was interesting. I quickly learnt the car had some flaws. The most obvious one was that the JDM stereo was still installed and I had no idea how to connect my phone to it. Que two hours of jamming to the Japanese pop music that I found stored on the headunit internal hard drive. I got a couple of interesting looks gound through the small towns, cranking that, arm out the open window…

The other big issue was the throttle response and clutch control was terrible. Taking off from intersections resulted in either bunnyhopping away, or nearly stalling it as the throttle did nothing. I got a bit more used to driving around it, but it wasnt that much fun.

I’m also forgetting that the car came fitted with a lovely sickly sweet air freshener in the cup holder, which got so strong and unpleasant I considered throwing it from the moving car to get rid of it, but in the end I handed it to someone to throw in the bin at the next stop.

Oh, and the last surprise was that the car has a pretty bad shake when travelling over 100kph. I’m hoping this is the mismatched cheap ditchfinders that are currently fitted.

Anyway, I made it safely home and although I was off to a bit of a rocky start to the relationship, I still enjoyed the drive back. It was a very pleasant car to drive.

If I were a Youtuber, I’d say something like – I BOUGHT THE CHEAPEST MANUAL BRZ IN THE COUNTRY. But I’m not, so… yeah, I did though.

It was fithly, but I couldnt help myself from stopping and grabbing some photos.

Being an S trim level, the highest in this model, I also ended up with some goodies like dual zone climate

and heated half leather seats

Along with red stitched leather padding around the place.

A previous owner had ticked a couple of boxes too, which left me with an STI skirt kit (except the front lip which has been replaced with a knockoff due to an incident with a possum), LED “dayliner” DRLs, the red STI start button and the previous owner added the rear spoiler with STI gurney flap.

Over all, its a stunningly good looking car. The World Rally Blue paint and STI skirts are what really tipped me over to buying this one. All the others that were on the market tend to be black, white or the odd red one. I’m also a fan of it being the Subaru variant as I feel its the most true to its heart; the boxer engine.

So yes, thats the new toy. I have a big list of things that need doing, and before doing any actual “upgrades” I really want to get on the track and get a baseline first, so I know what to improve on.