The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here.
I was looking around at all the various cars that I wanted to get. It didn't need to be big, just reliable and inexpensive. I was intrigued with the whole All Wheel Drive thing...seemed like a good idea, living in Maine and all. So as I looked around, I concluded that Subaru was really my best choice. Honda, Toyota and Nissan had some offerings, but Subaru was the leader of the pack. So I started to look in the paper for an Impreza or maybe a Legacy.
1994 Subaru Justy 4WD 4 door
I was looking around at all the various cars that I wanted to get. It didn't need to be big, just reliable and inexpensive. I was intrigued with the whole All Wheel Drive thing...seemed like a good idea, living in Maine and all. So as I looked around, I concluded that Subaru was really my best choice. Honda, Toyota and Nissan had some offerings, but Subaru was the leader of the pack. So I started to look in the paper for an Impreza or maybe a Legacy.
The Portland paper wasn't exactly teaming with used Subies to choose from, but one popped out that had me intrigued. A 1994 Justy with only 39K miles...for $3000. Price was right. It was 
AWD. It was a Subie. And it was small. The Justy was famous for having a 3 cylinder...only 1.1 liters! Subaru's were notorious for being a trifle underpowered, so how would an engine that some motorcycles have hold up in a car? I called the guy and we met at the mall. The car was in perfect shape. This was a guy that had been in the Air Force and had been stationed in New Mexico. He was gone a lot and the Justy was garaged most of the time (that explained the low miles). He apparently was also a neat fanatic, as I've seen new cars that weren't as spotless as this was. I drove the car and liked it. It was small, but had 4 doors (plus a hatchback) and the little engine seemed to pull the car just fine. It really reminded me of my dad's old Rabbit, maybe a little smaller. After talking with the guy a little bit more, I found out that he was an Air Force flight surgeon and was meticulous in his care for all of his cars...including his prized '89 Landcruiser! Now we were more than business acquaintances...we were kin! He was changing his station to England somewhere and he couldn't store his Justy any more, so he pulled it on a trailer behind the Cruiser to his parent's house up in Maine. So it had spent it's whole life in the dry confines of the SouthWest...and avoided a potential issue on rusting that this dumb Colorado hick had never even considered. We moved from looking at the Justy to examining our Cruiser...he was in love. The one thing I can say is that we took very, very good care of the cruiser and it looked nice. I think he would've offered me top dollar for it, if I would've been willing to sell. So I agreed to buy the little car, handed him the cash money and the car was mine.
AWD. It was a Subie. And it was small. The Justy was famous for having a 3 cylinder...only 1.1 liters! Subaru's were notorious for being a trifle underpowered, so how would an engine that some motorcycles have hold up in a car? I called the guy and we met at the mall. The car was in perfect shape. This was a guy that had been in the Air Force and had been stationed in New Mexico. He was gone a lot and the Justy was garaged most of the time (that explained the low miles). He apparently was also a neat fanatic, as I've seen new cars that weren't as spotless as this was. I drove the car and liked it. It was small, but had 4 doors (plus a hatchback) and the little engine seemed to pull the car just fine. It really reminded me of my dad's old Rabbit, maybe a little smaller. After talking with the guy a little bit more, I found out that he was an Air Force flight surgeon and was meticulous in his care for all of his cars...including his prized '89 Landcruiser! Now we were more than business acquaintances...we were kin! He was changing his station to England somewhere and he couldn't store his Justy any more, so he pulled it on a trailer behind the Cruiser to his parent's house up in Maine. So it had spent it's whole life in the dry confines of the SouthWest...and avoided a potential issue on rusting that this dumb Colorado hick had never even considered. We moved from looking at the Justy to examining our Cruiser...he was in love. The one thing I can say is that we took very, very good care of the cruiser and it looked nice. I think he would've offered me top dollar for it, if I would've been willing to sell. So I agreed to buy the little car, handed him the cash money and the car was mine.It was a great little car. I got fabulous gas mileage on my 30 or so mile commute from Scarborough to Kennebunk. The AWD was awesome that winter (2001) which was the most snow Southern Maine had seen in years. And occasionally, I'd have to drive to lunch and 4 grown men could fit, it wasn't something I'd want to do for a long time, but it was plausible. When it came time to move back to Colorado in August of 2001, we had to keep it. So it got trailered and returned to the Rocky Mountains. I drove it to my job up in Boulder, about the only negative I could come up with was it's lack of A/C. When I worked at Time Warner, a buddy called it a "clown car" because when a couple of us got out of it coming back from lunch, he thought it looked like one of those little cars from the circus. I continued to drive it for a number of more years, and, embarassingly, I never cleaned it out. The guy who I bought it from would've been horrified, but I never vacuumed it out, or washed the inside in any way. It got a little gross on the inside (not horrible, I'm not a pig...), kind of like a car that had been used for about 5 years and never cleaned out.
Sometime during the fall of 2005, it had become obvious that we could live without one of our cars. We had 3 and the Justy was beginning to look like the odd man out. In addition, Kathie (Kristie's sister) really needed a car and we felt like we should help her out. So I spent a good day or two vacuuming and scrubbing it out, plus I got some sweet seat covers for it, and we "sold" it to her for $1. She still drives it today and hopefully will for a long while, even though her husband resents it (That's my perception...). The AWD system can't be used, as it needs a relay or something that would cost a couple hundred to fix and she doesn't have the money. But it's still a dependable little car and a fun one to boot.