Got something interesting to say about a Subaru XT or just about any other car ever made? We’ve got a mighty big soap box to tell it from. CC had over 100,000 Unique Visitors in during the past thirty days. That’s up 100% since just six months ago. The CC team of Editors and Contributors is working hard to keep the content flowing, but we all have other commitments too; this is one giant labor of love. So we’re always open to new Contributors who have knowledge and good writing skills, and can say something interesting, whether it be words of love or hate about any of the thousands of cars in our files, at the CC Cohort, or your own.
We could really use a Cohort Editor, someone who can pick out the most interesting cars and add something worthwhile to them. And we want to cover more recent cars: go out and shoot cars that interest you from the nineties and even aughts. Anything except brand new, as long as it has a story worth telling, short or long. And don’t they all?
Got something? Send it to us here at the Contact form, preferably in a Word doc; and attach pictures (not in the text). Or flip through the Cohort, or ask me if you have a particular car you’d like to write up and you don’t have pictures. I don’t promise absolutely everything will go up, as we’re constantly working to improve our quality. We also have an excellent copy editor to polish your text. So here’s your invitation to share your perspective on the XT, or whatever else, and have an appreciative audience hanging on your every word.
I can assure you, the editors don’t bite. Hard.
8^)
Paul, been going through a rough patch here. I hope to be getting you a few more columns soon. I’ve been swamped with many things, including my wife passing away. I’ll be back, though, Promise.
Ric
My condolences. No rush; just putting it out there.
Does the rear glass remind anyone else of the 1949 Studebaker?
Nice, never thought about that one, in spite of having owned XT’s wraparound rear window contemporaries, an ’87 Celica and an ’87 Sable.
Anyone who posts a comment on this piece is automatically drafted to write a full article expanding on the theme of their comment. I’ll expect it by Friday. 🙂
Sounds like an army – ” you, you and you are volunteers! Assemble in 2 minutes behind kitchen, next to supply entrance and start taking out garbage and liquid stuff in barrels we give to local pig farm! Move it, move it!!!” 🙂
Challenge accepted Paul… 😉
My only comment is that I considered buying a new XT at one point, but one visit to the Subie dealer convinced me otherwise in short order. The fit and finish on the *showroom* car was abysmal…
I look forward to learning a bit more about the XTs.
I was in Jr High when these were out, there was only one kid in our class that was into them and we all thought he was a bit off..
My only memory of these cars is that they seemed to be driven exclusively by bearded twits. Not that all people with beards are twits, or that the beardless are incapable of being twits. I’m just saying that a bearded twit is a particular type of twit, and for some reason, I never saw anyone behind the wheel of one of these Sporty Subarus who wasn’t a bearded twit.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A bearded twit goes into a head shop…
I’ve never seen a true base-model XT before – were the black bumpers part of the spec? In any case, love the body color trim rings around the black wheels.
This post convinced me to sign up for the Cohort, so if I find something interesting around ABQ I’ll post it there. I just spent the entire day buffing out my mom’s 1992 S-Blazer; I know you just ran a piece about the S-Blazer last month, but I’ll go ahead and add some shots of Mom’s anyway. Of note, it’s equipped with the CPI Vortec (complete with a factory “4.3L HIGH PERFORMANCE” sticker on the tailgate), bought new, and painted bright teal with charcoal two-tone.
The dealer told us GM only offered the bright seafoam/turquoise-ish color on Blazers for about six months. I can understand why – either you love it or hate it. Mom (still) loves it.
I saw my first one of these in the metal in May 1989, parked outside the small Blenheim Airport in the big South Island of little New Zealand. I was with a group of fellow 15-16 year-old classmates returning to the North Island from our 2 week Fifth Form Geography Fieldtrip.
My classmates weren’t drawn in by the allure of such an exotic-looking combination of metal, glass, plastic and ugly. They were the lucky ones – they weren’t going to have nightmares that night.
I noticed the car though, and because I knew everything when I was 15, I decreed it to look even worse in the metal than it did in the pages of Australia’s Wheels magazine, my childhood car bible. If I hadn’t had a broken foot and been on crutches (long story), I’d have run up to the Vortex (as they were named here) and kicked it for hurting my eyes, and being a hideous blot on the beautiful Kiwi landscape.
23 years later, I still buy Wheels every month, but it’s no longer my car bible (Car & Driver took that place several years ago); similarly, I now find the Vortex to be unusual, but it no longer scares me into eating my greens.
There you go Paul, how’s that? Did I win? 😉
Excellent news! I’ll most definitely think of something to contribute, although Columbus, OH can’t hold a candle to the Northwest in terms of variety.
I thought the same thing here in Indianapolis, but have amazed myself at the variety of stuff I have found. I am now sitting on a healthy stash of photos that await the proper inspiration. With no decent football to watch this fall, you should have plenty of time to hunt for CCs. 🙂
I thought about what it would be like to do a “CCs around the block” post like Paul did the other day, but as there are only two other farmhouses on our 3 mile square, it would be pretty boring… Actually, I have the only CC-worthy stuff right in my own barn or driveway (base model ’84 Mustang L, ’50 International L-170) – everyone else has newish farm pickups or forgettable passenger cars.
I visit my partner in Bloomington often and there are a lot more interesting cars there than over here, for some reason. There’s a late ’60s Imperial apparently used as a daily driver, always trundling around when I visit. Columbus has a lot of yuppie mobiles on lease, like base A4s and 328is, but otherwise is unremarkable. I very rarely see anything over 15 years old.
My son is a Junior at IU – I will have to pay attention and start looking for those Imps!
My first “real” exposure to the Subaru brand was the day that the owner walked into the parts department and annouced he had bought one of the two Subaru franchises in the area. I don’t think I was quite dumbfounded at that time as I was deep into Japanese motorcycles and in the middle of doing a quasi-restoration on a Suzuki RE5 so when the call came out on who wanted to be the Subaru parts guy everyone pointed to me. I was fluent in the Suzuki parts fiches so how different would Subaru be? Where as I was told to promptly drive the parts truck over to the other place and pick up all of the parts and equipment. All it took was one load. Right away I’m thinking what’s going on? I never believed the “myth” that Japanese cars were so reliable that you never had to buy parts for them, but yet all I had was a dozen tubs of tune up parts and other crap that people had ordered and never picked up. So in my spare time I became “certified” by Subaru USA and spent most of my free time reading the stack of paper parts catalogs I had. All of the current models were on microfiche but boy was there a load of history to be learned by those paper catalogs. Lets see. There was the original Young/360 two cylinder two stroke sedan and bus and the early 1000/1500 and FF1. Slowly people started to call on a regular bases for the current models and I became more proficient about the little quirks of this niche brand. Funny how people bitch about piss poor quality of the domestics but when it’s a little brand like Subaru it’s a quirk and you learn to live with it. Not to many Sube peeps jumping ship because they had to wait 3 weeks to get a timing belt or tail lamp but heaven forbid if I couldn’t shit that power window switch for a MonteCarlo they were going to drive across the street and buy a Civic! I quickly learned that GM was not the sole leader in parts bin engineering. Subaru had them beat in spades. It was than I would comtemplate building the ultimate Subaru just from the parts bin. Nowadays I call it “Fantasy Car Building”. Lets see, replace that NA horizontal four with a six cylinder. Hmmm? Not the 3.3 six from the SVX. Something more primitive. I know I saw a six cylinder in one of the catalogs. Leone,Loyale,Legacy,no not Justy,wait what is this? XT! Yes! I do remember the number one requisted part for the XT was the air struts for the optional air ride control suspension. Back in the late 80’s they MSRP’d for $300 each IIRC. Not many people understood that you could spend the same amount of money and convert them over to normal struts from the NA four banger base model. But I bet there is some old parts guy who has one of these because he knew about the part interchangeability. I always wanted to build a XT-6 Solo2/Autocrosser and often wondered how many examples sat around rotting away because their loyal owners thought “someday”. Oh how I would have been the pioneer. Nobody raced these cars back when they were new. Today we have the WRX and a few STI models but back than if you wanted a horizontally opposed motor it was Corvair,VW and Porsche. None of those sported a radiator and certainly not AWD/4WD. I guess I could just do a quick sloppy(copy) and paste from whakipedia and leave it at that but than we know that wiki is not the “go to” anymore for reliable information. Sorry guys. I don’t have much to add other than that but it sure was great to step into “the way back machine” and stimulate the brain cells again.
Reading your ideas about self leveling air ride control suspension I remind myself similar “catalogue research” of interchange possibilities of shocks and springs for my ’07 Forester 2.5XT with shut rear self leveling units…
Looks like soggy suspension elements is a sort of a trademark of (fancier) Subaru versions for ages… 😉
Great text mate! Send us some more about quirks of SVX or other Subies.
How has there been no MX-5 CC? It’s as deserving as any car, having resurrected a dead segment in the U.S., and being the top selling vehicle of its kind in the world. And no “chick car” comments needed, if you think it’s a chick car, you haven’t spent enough time in one or driven it the way it likes to be driven.
I’ve been hoping that a certain (occasional) CC Contributor who drives one might do us the honor. No such luck yet.
I’ve been thinking the same. And he wouldn’t even have to leave his driveway for pics!
But it looks to me @ Superbadd75, like you just promoted yourself to be “the certain CC Contributor” that will do it…
😉
I’d email this, but I don’t know who’s handling submissions these days. So I’ll put it out for the whole group to pile-on with.
Is there any interest or room for a Jack-Baruth-type essay of a more esorteric sort? In my files, I have a story – of a memorable night run I took when I was younger and Conrail was Conrail; when EMD SD-40s ruled; when the moon was full and memories walked.
Of a tale of a motorcycle; of the raw attraction all its breed have to young women; of drink and bad decisions and being beaten in the driver’s seat of a VW Fox traveling forty miles an hour.
Of what can happen when the train air “kicks;” when the moon is full; when the drive home is long on an autumn night in the woods. How bad nostalgia can beat a man to the ground, harder and faster than the worst batch of white lightning.
Takers?
EDIT: Just saw the Contact Form. But I’ll leave this up for public comment anyway…what the hey.