Junkyard Find: 1979 Subaru BRAT

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Where I live (Denver), wrecking yards overflow with old Subarus. I walk past junked early-80s Leones (or GLs or whatever Subaru’s confusing naming conventions of the era were) all the time, but I’ll always stop and photograph a BRAT. So far in this series, the BRAT roster includes this ’79, this ’84, this ’82, and this Sawzall-converted ’86. Last week, I spotted another example, and it still had its Chicken Tax-dodgin’ jump seats.

Yes, the personal-injury lawyers loved these seats, but they let Subaru evade the 25% tariff on imported light trucks.

Remember AOL CD spam? This car still has one!

It’s somewhat rusty (I know, Midwesterners, you don’t consider this to be true rust), but could have been kept on the road a while longer.

Corn stopped by.

The condition of the seats and the AOL disc suggest lengthy outdoor storage of a nondriving vehicle.









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.

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  • MrFixit1599 MrFixit1599 on Nov 12, 2014

    I still want my '84 BRAT back. 4WD, check. 5 speed manual, check. T-tops, check. Missing the jump seats, but it had the oddball topper on the back that I immediately removed, which is probably worth some money to someone today. Rust took it's toll. Last I knew, BRAT was the most searched vehicle on EBAY, with the fewest results.

    • -Nate -Nate on Nov 13, 2014

      Who knew ? . Sadly , the So. Cal. Junk Yards used to be chock full of neat old vehicles just needing Mechanical refurbishment , no one wanted them when they were 10 ~ 20 years old . Now it's Toyota Tercel 4X4 Wagons I see , as a Yankee Farm Boy this seems wasteful but what do I know ? . -Nate

  • Olydoug Olydoug on Nov 13, 2014

    There's one up the street that was just tagged by the city. Been there at the curb with a flat tire for several weeks. Same color but without the jump seats.

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