Nancy G's 2005 Baja Sport
Member #106877
Car Description:
My father got me my first Subaru in 1997. It was a 1982 GL; a faded, potato chip yellow in color with a generous peppering of rust. It was a stick, purchased off the back forty of some long-gone used car lot for a teenage girl to beat around. He got out of it, left the door open, and said, "drive it." That's how I learned to drive manual... and when my love for Subarus started. Over the years I had several others, including a 1985 GL hatchback, a 1992 Legacy, and a little 1997 Impreza Outback. One day, I happened to see the Baja featured in (I believe) Car & Driver while I was working. I had always fancied a Brat, but the Baja stole my heart from the moment I saw the spread in that magazine. But there was no way I could afford a new car at that time. Then, in 2009, my father passed away unexpectedly. After everything was taken care of, I went on a hunt. I wanted a non-turbo Baja, under 30k miles, and it had to be manual. I found it, over 100 miles away. A bright silver 2005 Baja Sport, 26k on the dial, manual transmission. My unicorn. She came home in February 2010, right between two snowstorms, and I have had her ever since. She will be with me until the day I die. I have owned her 15 years now and she has NEVER failed me, through over 180k miles. Not once. I am absolutely serious when I say that I have had nightmares about losing this vehicle. I do have another Subaru, but when everything is on the table, this is whose keys I’m picking up EVERY TIME.
This car is my everything. The last thing I ever ‘got’ from my dad, the man who’d introduced me to Subarus. If a person were to believe cars have souls, I would certainly point them at it. The sheer awesomeness of this car has been the deciding factor in numerous friends and members of my family ditching other brands and going Subaru.
When a friend lamented that she had a feeling a certain Christmas would be her mother’s last, this Baja took an impromptu multi-state road trip to make sure they got to be together and I never had a second thought that there would be any problems. She drove back and forth several times from Pennsylvania to Nashville when I moved in 2016/2017 without a hiccup. She’s gotten other vehicles out of snowbanks with all the effort of putting on lipstick.
She has hauled some really oddball stuff – a full two-story play set; a full-size couch and loveseat – in a single trip; a full patio set with 5 chairs, a chaise, a glass-top table and all the cushions – in a single trip; a trailer full of live chickens; another trailer with a miniature horse, and countless other things that got me more than a few raised eyebrows and comments along the lines of “are you gonna have someone come with a REAL truck?” It’s turned into a total sport for me to arrive to a location and watch the jaws drop.
What started as a joke turned into a yearly tradition of bringing a smidgen of joy to anybody on the road with me when my mother purchased the first “Russell,” a life-size plastic skeleton who now makes an appearance every October in my quirky little Baja, doing heaven only knows what. I have been told directly by people how they sit in their offices and look down at the road every year to catch sight of the Baja, because they know he’ll be there somewhere. (Heck, he might even come with my mother and I when we come to WBM!)
I’m a trained Skywarn storm spotter and this is the car I trust to make sure I can do the job I volunteered to do AND get home again. She’s been half a mile from a rain-wrapped tornado and through countless thunderstorms, ice storms, and snowstorms – never putting a wheel wrong. In May 2027, the plan is to visit Kansas in May, prime storm season. To my knowledge, this is the ONLY storm-chaser Baja out there. There’s a lot of Subarus out there on the storm-chaser road, but I’ve never heard of another Baja.
Is she pretty and perfect? Nope. Neither am I. She’s got bumps and scrapes, but each one of them is a story. She earned every single mark and gotten me and those I love home safe EVERY time. Aside from a few little select touchups to paint, a rearview camera, a hood deflector, the usual upkeep/repairs, and maybe a bit of duct tape on the driver’s seat… she’s still pretty much all original. She is 90% the same beast that rolled off the assembly line in 2005 and she still kicks whatever @ss I point her at. She’s not factory shiny, she doesn’t have a big expensive paint job or a fortune in custom equipment. She’s exactly what Subaru meant to build – solid, reliable, and something I readily put my trust in every time I get behind the wheel. She’s my end-all, do-all, be-all, and is rolling proof to be that a thing doesn’t have to be perfect or fancy to be freakin' AWESOME.
Nancy's Social Media Info:
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http://www.facebook.com/nancy.garner.1671
