Hi Duffman
Good questions and ones that anyone interested in the car will want to know so here goes! RRS are on the Long Mile Road, it is run by Robert. He used to be a head mechanic for one of the Hungarian rally teams and has built an amazing Subaru STi himself. They do all cars, recently they were rebuilding the engine on an AMG S Class. I call them my Subaru specialist because my other car is serviced by Ken Plant Autotech, who is brilliant but for pretty high end cars.
I feel that Subaru STi’s are just moving in to the area of getting expensive and collectible, you can already see it with the 22b and P1. I have had a number of Subarus but never an STi so decided I’d better do it sooner rather than later before they do go up in price. Another indicator is how hard it is to find a low owner, unmodified, never crashed car with low mileage and a full verifiable service history – that is now almost impossible even in the UK – all these are signs of a car about to rise in price over the coming years. Owners are keeping them now rather than selling them. I can’t remember the last time I saw an STi around south Dublin, especially one in the classic WR Blue colours with the gold wheels!
So why am I selling mine after spending so much money, time and effort on it? Well, I always buy the best car I can and then make it better. I really wanted to see how good an STi was in absolutely standard trim? As most of you will know already on here, they are amazing cars. Everyone now talks about analogue cars, an STi is still probably one of the best analogue cars you can buy, in real world terms it is fairly unbeatable and while they are expensive to service, once it has been done they last for years. So when I got this I wanted it to be as perfect as possible, it was already a good car but servicing everything cost what it did. Robert put a lot of time and effort in to it and while it may look expensive he didn’t charge me anything close to what he could have. Making good cars better when you buy them is not how to make money but it is very enjoyable to own and then sell a good car in even better condition than when you got it. I always think I will keep my cars forever but things change. I am getting a rare Subaru XT restored which has been dragging on for a long time and it is now ready for the final stage of painting and being put back together which will probably cost about €5k. I am already paying over €3k per year just on tax, insurance and servicing on my other car so it doesn’t make sense to keep this and only use it for a 800 miles a year, though I would love to, just too many other car things going on!
This Subaru was bought off the showroom floor from CVC Subaru in Wales. The first owner bought it on the advice of the garage who serviced it all its life for both him and the second owner (the millionaire guy I mentioned above). He bought it new and imported it as a new car in to Ireland and I am assuming paid the €1,000 to get the special STi number plate plus however much vrt they were then? The first owner had it for 6.5 years from new and then the second owner had it for 5.5 years, before I bought it, it was always serviced by the same garage and I have verified all this information with them, they know the car well having worked on it all these years! I have a full motorcheck report from when I bought it also. It has the dealer sticker still on the back window, the full book pack from the dealer and dealer key rings on both keys, plus the fully stamped service book, it is a very original car. All the numbers match on all the body panels and glass. As far as we can tell it has never been painted, it does have marks on it but is in really nice condition. I will lose money on this car but I didn’t buy it for a profit, I bought it to experience the full STi and boy is it worth every penny, I love these cars!
Thanks
S.