Yahoo Autos If You Can't Buy the Ultimate Nineties Subaru, Build It
What's your dream car? Are you lucky enough to be able to park it in your driveway? If you grew up with a poster of a Ferrari F40 or a Porsche 959 on the wall, the answer to the second question is probably not. And with values for everything from Datsuns to DeLoreans pretty strong these days, a lot of younger enthusiasts are priced out of the market. But for hardcore Subaru fan and artist Maya Uhryniuk, her gravel-spitting, turbocharged dreams just became real.
This is a Gravel Express, easily the best-named vehicle Subaru ever made. Never mind the quarter-million-dollar 22B, here's a machine that embodies the true spirit of the six-star brand. Look! It even comes with an onboard dog! (Okay, admittedly: dog sold separately.)
"I was dreaming of owning a Subaru and Googling lifted first-gen Impreza wagons obsessively," says Uhryniuk. "I ended up on a history page, and there was a tiny little thumbnail of a Gravel Express on the side of the page. I took a screenshot of the thumbnail and reverse Google image searched it. From that the obsession was born."
A blend of golden era WRX and lifted Impreza Outback wagon, the Gravel Express hits all the Subaru high notes. Turbocharged flat-four with a little over 200 hp? Check. Hood scoop? Check. Bull bar and rally lights? Check. Two-tone paint job and a typically JDM laundry-list sticker on both flanks? Check and check.
Parked up next to it is Uhryniuk's original tribute to her dream car: a Canadian-market Impreza Outback. She bought it as a project car and built it up over the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, learning how to solve mechanical issues as she went along.
Uhryniuk has a degree from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and works as an architectural draftsperson. She comes from an artistic and architectural family, so it's a case of the apple not falling far from the tree—though, in this case, the apple appears to have rolled onto an active stage rally.
Uhryniuk's parents weren't really car people, yet she bought herself a Legacy for $500 and fixed it up, teaching herself to drive a manual transmission in the process. It was endless sketching of cars meets grease under the fingernails and then hitting B.C.'s endless forest service roads on the weekends.
The little red Outback has become something of a fixture at Subaru events in the Pacific Northwest, and on the back left window are a dozen reasons why. Over the years, Uhryniuk's sketches of cars have grown from a hobby to running a small business as an illustrator and designer, with artwork commissioned by Subaru. For Ken Block's charity, the 43 Institute, she drew up an illustration showing the Block family's racing machines at Pikes Peak. Lucy and Lia Block signed T-shirts, stickers, and posters at a fan event with the proceeds going to the charity.
What's fun about Uhryniuk's artwork is that she has the accuracy of a draftsperson and car enthusiast's eye but also loves a touch of fun. A sticker of a frog driving a Renault Twingo or a Canadian goose bursting out of a Bricklin SV-1? Why not? She drew a Lancia Delta Integrale in the style of an AT-AT walker from The Empire Strikes Back and a Gravel Express in the livery of the spaceship from Futurama. She even fabricated up what the blister pack for a Hot Wheels scale–sized Gravel Express would look like. On her Instagram post, she tagged it with, "If you can't buy it, build it."
That was the plan for the Outback Sport: a full WRX powertrain swap. Subarus of this era have a lot of parts interchangeability, so the process wouldn't be impossible, just hard to swing on a freshly graduated student's budget. But then opportunity came knocking.
"I got a submission through my website from the previous owner," Uhryniuk says. "They had bought stickers from me in the past and reached out to see if I would be interested in buying their beloved Gravel Express that they were moving on from."
The Gravel Express was sold for just two years in Japan and is incredibly rare. Only 400 were made, and only a handful have made it to North America. Subaru fans in the U.K. have also imported a few, but it's the kind of car most people don't know exists. When they do come up for sale, pristine models can fetch a premium.
This one needed work and an owner with an adventurous spirit. It also helped that Uhryniuk had a friend in Calgary who had owned a blue Gravel Express in the past and was able to get the car from where it was being sold in Edmonton down to Calgary.
As luck would have it, Uhryniuk and her partner Jordan Cook were headed to Calgary to cover a round of the Nitrocross rallycross circuit. They both do media work for Vermont Sportscar, the racing operation that builds and preps Subaru of America's rally cars. Despite it being the dead of winter, and with the Rockies standing in their way, Cook and Uhryniuk hit the road in her far-from-perfect Gravel Express.
"A crack in the radiator, an occasional misfire we suspect to be caused by bad coils, and a significant door ding on the driver's side that prevents the use of that door," she says, ticking off the future to-do list. "We packed extra coolant and sleeping bags in case we broke down on a mountain pass, and climbed in clown-car-style through the passenger's door to hit the road.”
They made it. Currently the car runs and drives but needs some work to pass B.C.'s provincial inspection for full registration. From there, it'll be a case of getting it mechanically sound and then hitting up events in it. As it's a wagon, it's just as practical as Uhryniuk's other Subarus: a rolling mobile art studio, a camping machine, and, of course, there's plenty of space for a dog. Who, by the way, has a very rally-appropriate name: Recce.
Seeing a young enthusiast achieve their dream car has a way of getting you fired up about your own plans. A barn-find 959 is probably out of the question, but if you can't buy it, build it—maybe a project 996 Turbo is within reach.
Or, if you'd just like to live that adventure vicariously, you can follow Uhryniuk and her Gravel Express on Instagram. (Recce has his own account too.) And a part of every Lancia sticker pack or Audi RS2 T-shirt you buy goes toward getting the Gravel Express back to its original glory. Even with a few dents in it, it's a dream car come true.
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