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.

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  • 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...

  • Joe65688619 My last new car was a 2020 Acura RDX. Left it parked in the Florida sun for a few hours with the windows up the first day I had it, and was literally coughing and hacking on the offgassing. No doubt there is a problem here, but are there regs for the makeup of the interiors? The article notes that that "shockingly"...it's only shocking to me if they are not supposed to be there to begin with.
  • MaintenanceCosts "GLX" with the 2.slow? I'm confused. I thought that during the Mk3 and Mk4 era "GLX" meant the car had a VR6.
  • Dr.Nick What about Infiniti? Some of those cars might be interesting, whereas not much at Nissan interest me other than the Z which is probably big bucks.
  • Dave Holzman My '08 Civic (stick, 159k on the clock) is my favorite car that I've ever owned. If I had to choose between the current Civic and Corolla, I'd test drive 'em (with stick), and see how they felt. But I'd be approaching this choice partial to the Civic. I would not want any sort of automatic transmission, or the turbo engine.
  • Merc190 I would say Civic Si all the way if it still revved to 8300 rpm with no turbo. But nowadays I would pick the Corolla because I think they have a more clear idea on their respective models identity and mission. I also believe Toyota has a higher standard for quality.
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