Every once in a while, I’ll stumble across something that truly hurts my heart. This was one of those times.
Obviously, a bit of setup is required here. My city, like many across America, has a main street lined with new car dealerships. But perhaps unlike in those other cities, in mine, these dealerships share a street with a fire department training center.
Not sure when I first noticed it, but a few years back I noticed that this center was suddenly getting filled with what appeared to be new Subarus. I’ve almost never seen any training happen at this training center, so I brushed it off thinking that maybe it was being used as a new-car overflow lot. Makes sense, I thought, even though there was no Subaru dealership within 10 miles of this place.
Days would pass. I’d keep driving by. And I’d notice that these Subarus no longer looked new. They’d be charred. Ripped apart. Cut up. And then it dawned on me: this training center was indeed still being used, and these Subies were being sacrificed in order to help train firefighters on the fine art of putting out car fires—and extracting those unfortunate enough to be trapped inside.
Then my brain went into overdrive trying to think about how this all came together. Did they choose Subaru vehicles because whatever gives them their reputation for safety also makes them harder to cut open, making them the ideal training vehicle? And how were they sourced? Were these all cars that had been totaled in some way? Were they off-lease donations from a local dealer? Maybe they were VIN-less press vehicles that had to be destroyed anyway? Should I reach out to Subaru to find out? And are those 20-ish-year-old PR contacts I had still valid?
Then my brain went, nah—too much work, and I forgot about things. Until I saw this. I first saw that it was an STI. In white. Which is one of the only cars I’ve ever wanted. Then I saw the badge: Type RA. And then I fell into a pit of despair.
You see, this wasn’t just any STI with an interior carpet soaked in vape juice. This was a Type RA. It’s one of just 500 examples of a car built to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Subaru Technica International (STI), with the “RA” standing for “record attempt,” in tribute to the NBR models Subaru built to set records at Germany’s famed Nürburgring.
This is an STI that has been lightweighted, its carbon fiber roof helping to further lower the car’s overall center of gravity. Its 2.5-liter turbocharged boxer-four was reworked to provide a modest power bump to 310 horsepower, and paired to a six-speed manual transmission with shorter throws and a shorter 3rd gear. It also got a fancy Bilstein suspension and lightweight BBS wheels wrapped in sticky Yokohama ADVAN Sport V105 tires. It also had a pedestal-mount carbon fiber rear wing, but as you can tell, that had been ripped off long before I happened upon this grisly scene.
As the days turned to weeks, this WRX would continue to be ravaged—most notably the entire greenhouse would be cut off—until eventually, it was gone. Replaced by another Subaru to be sacrificed in the name of training. But just as quickly as that Subaru slaughterhouse appeared, on one random day that lot was fully cleared. And it remains empty to this day, filled only by the haunted screams of Subarus torn asunder.
