Impressive Impreza

Thank you for a trip down memory lane with the article about Japanese ’90s rally replicas in Octane 193.

Around April 2000, my fledgling disco-karaoke company had really taken off and I decided it was time to buy a new car to replace my battered Sierra estate. Driving past a small independent garage on the way home from work, I spotted a 1996 Subaru Impreza estate and, a few minutes later, after being offered the monetary equivalent of a balloon and a goldfish for poor old Henry, my matt-black Ford, I owned it.

It was a tense moment when I tried to fit the amps, speakers, stands and lights in it a few days later, the Impreza being about a foot shorter than its predecessor, but it all went in. It proved to be crazy-quick and I became the fastest karaoke in the West (Midlands). Over the next few years we were inseparable. The roadholding was incredible, the performance electric, and I won’t incriminate myself by stating how long it took to get to Devon for a short break other than to say that distance divided by speed limit doesn’t equal time.

Most of my cars over the years have been boring ones, bought on a budget or insurance quotes, but the Subaru is the one I’d always buy back if I saw it. I betrayed it for 30 pieces of silver – well, four grand – when I changed jobs to become a sales rep and was given a company car and sold the karaoke business.

My 12-year-old son, on being shown your article, exclaimed: ‘You had one of those and you sold it?’ I think they heard his last word in the next street… ‘WHY!’

Simon Elston, Staffordshire