S&YE217 - Slow Baru | Car Curious

Hello, this is Dylan.

You can find me on Instagram at slobaru.

You're listening to episode 217 of the Subin U Podcast.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to another episode of the Subin U Podcast.

As you just heard, we have Dylan this week.

Dylan actually has a lowered Crosstrek, so we're getting into something a little bit

different.

I think maybe this is the second, I know it's at least the second lowered Crosstrek I've had

on the podcast, but maybe the third.

I can't remember exactly.

I've had 216 episodes prior to this.

I remember a lot of them, but I don't remember every single one because it's hard to keep

track lately, but it's cool to have something different on the podcast because typically

we have lifted Subarus, and now we've got one that's lowered that's typically not lowered.

So it's nice to do something different.

I hope you all had a great weekend and I hope you all have a great week ahead.

And I hope today, my Monday, December 7th, is a good Monday because I'm hoping to get

Pearl back today.

And I will be very, very happy and ecstatic to get Pearl back if it's day.

If not, it's definitely tomorrow, but I'm really, really hoping it's today.

I miss driving my car.

I miss driving around and getting looks.

I miss driving up to another Subaru and being able to look over it, maybe give a Subi wave.

I just miss my car, period.

And again, I'm thankful to have something to drive, but you all know it's not the

same.

It's just not the same.

And this is the longest I've ever gone without driving my car.

I've been out of town before, you know, not being able to drive my car, but this is the

longest I think it's ever been.

So really, really looking forward to getting back in the driver's seat and going for

a spin.

So we'll get into some other stuff, but first let's hear from one of our sponsors.

The Subi and You podcast is brought to you by Ascentric Designs.

For those of you who don't know, Ascentric Designs is a small, community-driven

business that offers custom fit vinyl overlays for most Subaru models.

This includes various designs for the rear reflectors, tail lights, and side tail lights.

I also offer fun, decal designs like the popular fender stripes and stickers.

To find designs for your Subi, head on over to eccentricdesigns.com.

There's always more projects in the works, so be sure to follow at eccentric.designs

on Instagram.

As always, thank you so much, eccentric designs for sponsoring the Subi and You

podcast.

Go check her out on Instagram and check out her website to see what she has to offer

for your Subaru.

And I'm going to go ahead and get into our next sponsor because our next sponsor is Subaru

Gear.

The holidays are coming up, so right now is the perfect time to go shop Subaru Gear

and find what you want for yourself, or even better, find one for the Subaru enthusiast

in your life and surprise them for the holidays.

So fill up your cart, and when you check out, use the code SUBI and YOU25 at checkout to

get 20% off your purchase.

If your total is over $50 after the 20% discount, then you automatically get free shipping.

And just a heads up, next year the discount code for the Gear store is going to be

SUBI and YOU2026.

So just keep that in mind, write it down or something, because at the end of this

year the SUBI and YOU25 discount code will be ending.

Thank you so much Subaru Gear for sponsoring the Subi and YOU podcast and bringing this

great offer to our listeners.

We are almost at the end of 2025 and I hope that everybody has had a really great year.

And you know, maybe if you haven't had a really great year, then hopefully next

year will be better and we can get a good start and everything will be good and

just keep the momentum going with some good things in our lives.

If you're driving a Subaru every day, how can it be wrong or how can it be bad?

So I hope everybody is doing well and I hope everybody is going to be able to spend the

holidays with friends and family and just hang out and have a good time and eat some

good food.

So I know we're a few weeks away, but I wanted to just go ahead and say that

and let you know the next regular guest episode will be December 22nd, so it'll be the Monday

right before Christmas.

So I'll drop another message about the holidays, but anyway, we will get into this episode

here in just a little bit, but also want to give a shout out to SUBI mods.

They are of course my other sponsor and I'm very, very thankful for their sponsorship.

It's great to have them as a partner and it's great to see what they're doing

out there in the community.

I know they've done a couple of things with Adventure 1, so that's really cool.

So I hope to see more off-road and overland stuff from SUBI mods.

They also did a blog post about that wandering Fawzi, Sam, so that was really cool too.

So go check out their website, check out their membership programs because you can

earn points to save money off your purchases, which is a really, really great perk to

their membership.

So thank you so much SUBI mods for sponsoring the SUBI and you podcast.

So now we're ready to get into this episode with Dylan.

Talk about his lowered cross track, which is always fun because that's not what we

typically see and he wanted to do something different, which I think is great.

So we will get into this conversation with Dylan.

Welcome to the podcast Dylan.

How's it going?

Thank you.

Good.

So what's the weather like in Vermont right now?

Right now?

Well, today's sunny and nice, but it's been kind of crappy in the rainy snow mix

enough.

We don't really have anything to know yet, but it's just like that end of fall kind of

gloomy weather.

Oh, yeah.

What's the temperature?

Tell the sun.

Oh, it's probably around 50s, 40s, 40s, 50s.

Okay.

That's nice.

It's still gold.

It's still jacket weather.

Yeah.

I checked the weather this morning here in the Houston area and it's 72.

Oh, that's nice though.

Yeah, it's nice, but like Thanksgiving is next week and there's been so many years when Thanksgiving

will roll around and it's like 85 degrees and it sucks because like we want it to feel

like Thanksgiving.

You know, we want it to be cool.

And when it's like when you can wear shorts and a t-shirt on Thanksgiving, that's just

not right.

Do you have like that fall foliage out there?

Or?

I mean, are you more like pine trees and?

Yeah.

I mean, we've got all sorts of different trees, but because of the climate here, it's green

and brown.

That's our colors.

We don't get all the beautiful colors that you get.

You don't get the yellow and reds and.

Occasionally, you'll see something that'll have a little bit of color like that, but

for the most part, it's green and brown.

And I guess I kind of take it for granted because I see it all the time.

Yeah.

Like I don't see what other people see because I see it all the time.

Yeah.

That's like with snow.

Some people don't realize that we don't get snow here because like I've said something

before like, oh yeah, I've never driven through snow and they're like, what?

You know, because when you live somewhere where you get snow all, you know, every

year and you grew up that way, it's I think.

Yeah.

You just kind of don't.

Yeah.

I think people just think that everybody has a climate like that and it's not like

that here.

But yeah, I've been to Virginia and I've seen during the fall and I've seen the

beautiful colors and I think the most fun is just cranking down a windy

back road and seeing all those leaves come up behind your car.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, we, you know, the leaves fall here.

They just don't, like I said, this just they turn a lot of the time when

they're falling here, they're still in that beautiful orange and yellow.

And it just looks like a big confetti storm behind your car sometimes.

Man, that's nice.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wish we had that here, but hopefully I'll get a chance to take

my kids up to the Northeast sometime during the fall to see all the beautiful

colors.

Yeah, to have a Rondachs are beautiful.

Yeah.

That's the place to go.

Yeah.

Yeah, a windy back roads to just drive down and just see the foliage and.

Yeah.

There's, I don't know, there's so many beautiful places.

I'm glad that we've had the opportunity to travel here and there.

Like we went to Oregon for Overland Expo Mountain and that was that was

really nice because we got to do a lot of hiking, saw some waterfalls and

saw some mountains and that was really nice.

So it was very thankful for that.

But we've been to Arizona and Colorado and me and my son of beautiful.

Oh, yeah.

And me and my son have been to Seattle and seen a few parts of Washington.

But yeah, so so much to see.

So little time.

I've been in Colorado, but on a bus.

So I haven't been driving myself, but it's just so nice.

The weather change from like the mountain to the desert of Colorado is crazy.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

Having having snow in July is like people are seeing in July.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.

So, well, one of the most important questions that I have to ask is

whether you prefer waffles or pancakes.

I like them both.

That's a fair answer, because I like them both, too.

I just like pancakes a little bit better.

But so I live in I've lived in the south and chicken and waffles is huge.

But I also grew up in New England.

So pancakes are and maple syrup are just.

Classic. Yeah, that Vermont maple syrup.

Yeah, that's good stuff.

Yeah, no, that's a fair answer.

That's it's it's there.

They're a pretty even thing, but, you know, it's hard to pick one for me.

Well, because also here, if you a lot of the ski resorts you go to,

they'll have little waffle shacks that do like bake the waffles

and drizzle chocolate or syrup over them.

And those are delicious, too.

Yeah, no, it's definitely it can be a tough decision on those.

But that's a good answer.

So I worked in kitchens for a while, too.

So I like a lot of different food.

Yeah, there's there's so many good foods out there.

That gets tough, too.

It's always fun finding something new that you haven't had before

that just blows your mind, you know.

But yeah, that's that's what's fun about traveling sometimes, too,

is being able to find different food in different places.

But so with your Subaru, is this your first Subaru?

No, I've had about five or six.

OK, nice. Nice.

Which ones have you had before?

I've had a few WRX sedans.

OK, I had a V the V this the flat six out back.

Oh, nice.

And the four cylinder out back. OK, they're fun.

Yeah. So what are you driving now?

16 cross track. OK, got you.

Limited. Yeah.

So it's got a few of the bells and whistles,

but it's not fully high in tech.

Yeah, that's good.

Mine mine is a base, but which which I'm fine with.

And mine's a manual, but with mine,

like I was looking for a manual that was like my kind of like my only option.

You know, it's like the hardest thing to find.

Yeah. And I wish they made them in the third gen,

but they only made them in the first and second gen.

But so I feel like mine's a little bit of a unicorn, which is which is nice.

And and mine was I was rear ended on November 15th.

And yeah, you sent me those pictures.

I was crazy. Yeah.

So it's in the shop as we speak now.

And by the time this comes out, I should have her back.

But my biggest concern was I did not want her to get totaled.

And when when I got a text message from the repair shop

saying that my completion date is December 5th,

I was super excited about that because it was two and a half weeks

from the time I got the text. But yeah, it doesn't look too crazy.

Damage wise, I mean, it looks like it just needs a hatch and probably a rear bumper cover.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Hit by a Jeep Laredo.

Oh, yeah. So everything is in that rear hatch.

Yeah. That's where the main damage is.

Thankfully, yeah, I mean, it was and it was like when we got when I got it to the shop,

I hadn't opened it from the time the accident happened.

When we got it to the shop, I opened up the hatch and then,

which I was surprised we were able to open and then we were able to close it back.

Of course, it wasn't sealed, but, you know, it was just I'm just

I'm so glad that they're able to repair it.

I was worried. Yeah.

It was cool because the the hatch kind of just folded in on itself

rather than ruining some of the body structural stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I got totally lucky because none of the body

like the none of the the body that surrounds the hatch opening was damaged

except for the little part down at the bottom where it closes.

That just needs to be bent back some.

But other than that, yeah, so super thankful.

I think that's the cool thing about Subaru is they have such safety in mind

that that door is meant to be a crumple zone.

Yeah. Yeah, I did.

It's so it doesn't jar the rest of the vehicle

and it also helps the driver in being hit.

Yeah. Yeah. And I was just glad I was able to drive it home too.

Yeah. Because that would have been that would have been tragic.

But yeah. So anyway, yeah, cross tracks are cool.

And but like, where did your interest in Subaru come from in the first place?

So I always liked them off.

At first, I was a Volkswagen guy.

I used to like Jetta's and all those.

And then but a buddy of mine had

an RS that he got dirt cheap.

And there was another one and I bought one as well.

Oh, nice. And they're just fun cars.

But I just after driving it and modifying it, it was fun.

And I just kept buying them because I like started to love the all wheel drive.

Yeah. Oh, and I'm sure the all wheel drive is super nice.

Opposed to Volkswagen and I'll be in front wheel drive.

I never had anything like a big R 32 that was all wheel drive or anything.

But I had some big VR sixes and they make a lot of power.

But the all wheel drive system just kicks out.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So so you had you had the RS and then you said you had a couple of

WRX's and then you had the outbacks.

Did you when you had the outbacks, did you do any offroading with it?

No, no.

Those are just basically dailies that the outbacks were never molested.

Any. Oh, they were just they were just bone stock.

And they were getting me to work cars.

OK. But their workhorse is you could haul

pretty much anything I needed with them. Yeah.

Yeah. And I love having a hatch too,

because it gives you so much more flexibility than a trunk.

And like trunks have a lot of times I'll have a lot of volume,

but the opening you can't get anything in them, you know.

I just like it. I like a hatchback. Oh, yeah.

This is something about a hatchback.

Yeah, I've I've always see I liked the the Mazda

threes for a long time, the hatchback.

And I used to want one until they changed the body style.

And then I was like, now I don't want one because it looks ugly.

Yeah. They're also a fun car, those Mazda threes.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, so like when you bought the cross trick that you have now

was the intention with that to be another daily like with the outback?

Or the intention I didn't even so when I got it, I didn't even really like the car.

I didn't even really like the car.

I just it was something I could get into and needed to get out of what I was in.

OK, I just I would have to think too much money into it.

And it just turned into like I was like,

oh, just till I get the next thing kind of thing.

And then I just fell in love with it.

Now, were you were you just wanting to get another Subaru?

Obviously, because of the all wheel drive, I was thinking of a different Subaru.

I just I wasn't thinking cross track. OK.

I wasn't I wasn't thinking

jacked up and I kind of kind of, yeah, I was just like,

I don't know what I was thinking.

Maybe a Forester or something, if I was going to go something

that was sitting that high, yeah, I love the Forester too.

But I just I wasn't thinking cross track.

So but I got in it and I started driving.

I love the car.

How long did it take you to to be like, oh, man, I love this thing.

Like because it sounds like you six, seven months.

OK, they grew on me over over a few.

And then I started seeing others that were modified.

I was like, there's so many that are lifted.

I was like, it just I want to be different.

Yeah. Yeah, you definitely went the different route.

Because and again, did you not take that one off road ever?

Like was that is going off road kind of not your thing going off road?

Was it if I go off road?

I got I usually have trucks and stuff like that.

Got you up here.

If you're going off road, you're you got trees that are

you got to drive over in some places and it's just not going to happen

even if you lift the car.

I mean, you got some jeeps that can't get over things.

I mean, I used to have a full size ninety four lifted blazer

that it was just a monster.

Yeah. The tires were higher than the hood

on most cross tracks. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool.

So when did you decide like, hey, I think I'm going to lower this thing?

So I kind of started when I found a group called Ruin to Cross Tracks.

Oh, on on Facebook.

And it was it's ruined and then it's quoted and it says lowered cross tracks

after that. Yeah, because every everybody in like the

some of the lifted cross track means like you ruined it.

Like, no, it's just what we like.

Yeah, it's just what we like.

So we enjoy different things.

Yeah, I mean, and I think that's something to really keep in mind

and that should be important is that, you know, whatever somebody does

with their car, it's like that's what they want to do with their car.

And I think, yeah, you know, if if we can just show respect

and, you know, admiration for what somebody did and be like,

you know what, I wouldn't lower a cross track,

but I really like what you do with yours.

And it looks good, you know, I think if we can just, you know,

and that's what's nice about the Subaru community, though,

is there is more of that respect, you know,

sometimes you'll find somebody that might be kind of negative and stuff.

But for the most part, my experience has been that, you know,

people are respectful of other builds because it seems most

most Subaru groups are very inclusive and like anything.

They're not just stuck in like one way.

Yeah, I've noticed that, like, some like older Jeep guys

or older Toyota guys get into the cross track lifting community

and they're a little of the toxic side,

but they're they're they're getting a little too old to get back up

in those lifted Jeeps and those Toyota's.

So they need something a little lower

that it still makes them feel like they're lifted. Yeah.

But that's not even a majority of the community.

The community is just so great. Oh, yeah.

Subaru is just and that's what I like about

Subaru over some other brands is just Subaru's Berry and enjoys everyone.

Yeah, because I've heard so many people

that I've just either talked to or that I've had on the podcast

that when they first bought their Subaru, it was not modified at all.

And they got invited to a car meet with people who had a bunch of modified cars

and they were so like nervous and, you know, almost didn't go

because they were worried that people were going to give them a bunch of crap

for not having any modifications.

And then they get there and they're pleasantly surprised

that people start asking them about their car.

And they're like, I didn't do anything to it.

And they're like, it doesn't matter.

You know, you're here with us and you have a Subaru

and you obviously love it.

So you belong.

And I think when people find that out, then that just, you know,

because it seems to like there's, you know, there's the Subaru people.

A lot of times they're like a certain type of person.

Like I think there's a lot of introverted people.

I think there's a lot of, you know, people that may not have a whole lot of friends.

And then they get into this community.

And then now they have people that where they feel included,

they they start becoming a little more outgoing.

And they're in a place where they're comfortable and, you know, and accepted.

And then, you know, they can actually talk to people.

And I think too, that like when you get into a situation like that,

it helps you to open up more and other aspects of your life.

Yeah.

So it's it's been a good thing to accept other people for who they are.

Yeah.

So how long did you have it before you decided that you wanted to lower it?

Under a year.

OK. So I got into.

So after I got into, um, Bruin Cross Tricks, I just started finding people's

Instagrams and I had started an Instagram for my car.

And so I just started following some of the people I just saw their cars

and thought they were awesome.

There's like two guys I followed that have kind of the same vision as I do.

And they have a few more modifications that I do that I really like.

Yeah.

And I'm getting there eventually.

Just some of the stuff is expensive and yeah, it's hard.

It's hard living and buying some expensive stuff.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, it's great to connect with people.

And that's that's what's so great about Wicked Big Me.

Oh, yeah.

Wicked Big Me is awesome.

And I've gone the past two years and I've shown the past two years.

And this year, my car just really got a lot of attention.

The year before it didn't really get looked at.

I mean, but I had a little bit more done this year.

And when I went the first year, I kind of just had.

My coilover is done and my my wheels on.

It was just nice and clean.

And then this year, I really got a few more things done.

Did my custom exhaust stuff, which now I'm in version two

of after Wicked Big Me.

Yeah, I saw you had a different exhaust than the one I had seen previously.

Yeah, so the new since I got rear-ended.

I've got my new bumper.

I've got it painted.

I'm just not going to put it on till spring.

OK, new exhaust just needs a little more modification

to fit the new bumper so it's not fully cut out in the rear.

Gotcha. Yeah.

Because I wanted to hide some of the pipe

and I just want the tips to stick out.

Yeah, that's such an awesome look.

Yeah, what year is your cross-trick and when did you buy it?

OK, I bought it to 16 and I believe I got it in.

One year, one or twenty two.

OK, how many miles did it have when you bought it?

And a hundred and forty three on it and I've got it almost to one eighty.

Wow, nice.

Yeah, mine's at one thirty eight right now and it's a twenty one.

Yeah, put a lot of miles on it pretty quick.

And I have driven it.

I've driven it to South Carolina stock height.

And then I've also driven it to South Carolina, lowered height.

OK, is that the furthest distance you've driven it?

Yeah, how far is that?

Like mileage wise, do you know? Oh, that's.

I know it's 14 hours. Oh, yeah, that's a long trip.

Yeah, I think it's a couple thousand.

It's over a thousand. OK, yeah.

Yeah, it's a pretty good, pretty good trip there. Yeah.

Did you were you nervous at all buying a car with that many miles on it?

No, because where I work, I can car fax and then check anything I want.

OK, so my car has record of the lady

who owned it, the first owner and the second owner.

The lady who owned it before me, she was a little old lady, mostly highway

driving. My work, she actually goes into one of my chain shops.

So I have meticulous records of this car being taken care of

and oil changes on time, maintenance on time, everything.

That's great. Yeah, was done up on it.

And it was nice to be able to see that.

And I mean, I could I even looked up the lady

because I could see her name on the. Yeah, she's just a little grandma.

Has she seen the car since you've done it? No.

OK, that would be interesting to be what did you do to my car?

OK, she lives up Northern Vermont. OK, so yeah.

No, that's cool. I didn't drive three hours for this car.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know that.

I know people have taken by this car.

I know people have taken some pretty long trips to get the car that they want.

And because of the blue. OK, yeah.

It's a very it's a very uncommon color. Yeah.

Yeah, I know it's they've got some good colors, too.

And yeah, it's yeah, I I didn't wait too long for mine

because I wanted a manual.

I wasn't really particular on a color.

I just didn't want like the darkest.

That's like the super dark gray that's almost a black.

The only other way you can get this blue

and other than buying a cross track is buying an STI.

Oh, OK. It's hyper blue.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK. Nice.

Nice. Yeah.

So when you decided to start lowering it,

like, what was the first thing that you did?

The first thing is I did my research.

OK. What suspensions fit in these cars?

What supers or Legos?

They're.

Across all different other years and makes and models,

suspensions are shared through certain ones.

A lot of interior parts are shared through certain ones,

driveline parts and stuff like that.

And so you can lower a cross track by all means

by buying cross track specific coilovers.

But what I've after doing my research and found

is if you buy a set of cross track coilovers,

you never get the front end to go low enough

to create the rake that I have created

in my car because you can't ever get the front end to drop low enough.

You'll always get the ass end to drop lower than the front.

And it just doesn't look right.

Yeah. And when you when you're looking at the car,

it just it looks catty office.

Yeah, it's not an old school low rider.

No. And so what I did is I did my research

of what matched up to the cross track of first generation

and the O8 to 14 WRX suspension matches up to the cross track.

And so I bought that suspension being as easier to get a hold of

and it was cheaper to go that route.

And I went with race land because of their lifetime warranty and everything.

And I was able to get the front end lower and look much nicer overall.

Yeah. So when did you do that?

You said that was within a year.

Yeah, within a year.

I got wheels and tires first.

And then I was like, those are street wheels.

Yeah, I was like, they they don't look

tonguey or meaty. I do want to do a different wheel setup.

Fifty two has a really nice white five star wheel.

It just looks like a big star.

And I think those look beautiful on these cars.

Yeah. So the ones you have now are the ones that you first put on it.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, they're the first set of wheels I bought for this car.

Gotcha. Yeah, they look good.

I like them.

But sometimes the black kind of fades into the car

when during pictures and videos.

Yeah, since my car is white, I've seen some

not that this person's car is white, but I have the Raika

T-tons, which is a five spoke wheel.

And I somebody, I don't remember what their account is,

but somebody took those wheels.

I don't know if it was the same color I have,

but they just took a set of T-tons and powder coated them white.

And they look so good.

Yeah. So if I could do that, that would be something

I'd be interested in like just playing around with like

powder coating mine, white and have the powder coating is cool.

Have that true like white and black contrast.

Yeah. But that would look really good.

Yeah. That's for another day.

Yeah.

So when you decided to lower it and like,

you know, you said that it's ruined Cross Trek.

Did you get some flax from some other Cross Trek owners

or was everybody pretty supportive?

Cross Trek community.

Some people outside like, so I don't just go to Subaru only events.

I go to a lot of import shows.

OK. And there are those people like,

well, why didn't you just buy an Impressa?

Because they didn't want an Impressa.

Yeah.

I bought a Cross Trek because I got a Cross Trek.

And this is what I did with it.

Yeah. Exactly.

Most of all, it's it's everyone's like, wow, that's really cool.

Not everybody does that.

Yeah. I mean, it's not what you would expect somebody to do with a Cross Trek.

Exactly. You know.

And it's kind of what throws people off

because then they just think it's a trimmed out Impressa.

That's either wrapped hyper blue or painted hyper blue.

And it's not.

And they actually get around it and see the badge and like, oh, wow.

Oh, that's actually a Cross Trek.

It's actually five inches lower than it should be.

Yeah. It's looking up your account right now.

I mean, I've looked at it before, but I'm trying to look at it again.

Yeah, that color is nice.

I love it.

I like the the hood looks good on it, too.

Yeah. So the hood I went and I bought.

Um, it's actually a full black hood.

It's not painted. It's a stock of crystal black

from another Cross Trek. Nice.

Yeah, I

I was wondering, like I was thinking, maybe what if I

just have them do my hatch black instead of

match the white color just to do something different?

It would pop. Yeah.

But then you could get into doing your hood,

and your roof black with wrap.

Yeah, that would look like it would look like you get a nice

stripe and two tone contrast color would look really good.

Yeah, I think that would be like something very different.

But yeah, I don't know.

I'm I'm still going to stick with the white.

I just picture I sent you.

That is a photo that was taken at my last show by a photographer

that I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for to get my car.

I didn't ask him to take that picture.

He takes pictures of cars he likes as they come in.

Oh, and very nice.

I finally I finally get the radar,

which is which is felt really good on the recognition scale.

Yeah, it was like, wow, I'm I'm I'm where I want to start being.

Yeah, no, that's cool. That's cool.

Let's see.

So, so you had this other Subaru's before, but like

because you said you started an Instagram page for your Cross Trek.

But did you not have an Instagram page for any of your other cars?

No, none of those cars.

They were more more dailies and a little bit of motor mods,

but nothing really ever special.

So did you know about or did you know that there was like this huge community

out there before you started your Instagram page for this car?

For a Subaru. Yeah, I knew there was a huge Subaru community.

The body of mine actually, when I was still in the Volkswagen's,

he was a Subaru ambassador like when Subaru first started doing their

ambassador program. Yeah.

And it was really cool.

I mean, I just at that time, I was Volkswagen's and Volkswagen's and Volkswagen's.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's that's cool.

Yeah, because I know there's like for me,

I had no idea that there was a community out there.

And I've had a lot of people on that, you know,

when they first bought their Subaru, they had no idea either.

And then now here we are immersed in it and connecting.

It's huge. Yeah.

And it's like you it's cool that you can easily just

talk to anybody in the Subaru community

and they're just they're immediately infatuated.

Oh, yeah. Whether it's whether it's lowered,

whether it's lifted, whether it's bone stock, they're just that's awesome.

Yeah. And it's cool that we get connected with people all over the country

and then all over the world, you know, through through Instagram.

And that's that's what's so cool, too, is, you know, and a lot of people

end up meeting people through this community and think back.

And it's like I would have never met these people if I didn't buy this car.

Yeah. And it's kind of crazy to think about what I like about.

So I'm just a car guy through and through.

And I'm also in a crew that we created.

We go to shows together and even my Volkswagen guys come to

we'll come to the Subaru specific shows and they'll or my Audi guys

and my all my other guys that don't drive Subaru come to the specific shows

and just hang out because we just support each other.

It's it's awesome.

What's the name of the group?

Engineered elegance. Oh, nice. That's cool.

Yeah. And we got two Volkswagen's of BMW for Subaru's.

OK. Yeah.

It's nice when you can have people from different brands come together

and respect each other's builds.

That's what we're trying to grow.

So when I was in high school, there used to be these great car shows.

You probably heard about slammed enough Gatlingberg.

What happened there?

So it's a big show for really low cambered out cars and cool.

They're awesome cars.

But people just who don't own cars kind of ruined it.

They were rioting and and stuff like that.

And it was just terrible.

Yeah, that's not cool.

There was a couple of other shows when I was a kid or younger, H2OI.

They got ruined the same way.

And we kind of as a group want to bring that stuff back

with our group, we just we roll together.

We take all our rollers together and it's cool.

Yeah.

And it's kind of like we turned into this little family that

never would have happened if we didn't meet at a car show.

Yeah.

We met at a car show in Massachusetts.

I set I set a group up to go roll together

and we were meeting at this location.

And a few people didn't show up and one guy was invited

from one of the group I invited and I didn't know he was coming.

So but he met at the location.

I didn't really like connect that he was going.

So I just left and drove there and saw him at the show.

I was like, yo, I saw you at the meet.

You were coming.

I was like, I should have just came over and talk to you there.

And and from then on, we built this this crew.

That's cool. Yeah.

So you're talking about rollers and you but you've got some nice

videos of you driving down some curvy road.

Where's that at?

That is Florida, Massachusetts.

Oh, interesting.

It's it was on my way back from Wicked Big Meet in 24.

That was one of that's version one of the exhaust.

Yeah.

And that was I drove through that section and saw that pull off

and I had a buddy with me and I was like, hey, you stand on this.

I'll turn around stand on that pull off and just video me coming by.

And it just it sounded really good, but it doesn't sound nearly as good

as it is. Yeah, I guess it's time to do another one.

Yeah, it was well, the old one would I made out of cheaper steel

and it rotted out Vermont winners.

Yeah. And I got this stainless 20 WRX 22 plus

three inch cat back for a wicked deal.

And it bolted right up.

Most of the pipes fit right under the car.

That's awesome. And then.

It fit right around the diff.

It everything was bent to where it should be.

The only thing I had to modify was the width of the tips.

Oh, yeah, they came out in the rear bumper,

which I'll have to modify again because how I'm changing the rear bumper.

But it I had to just cut and weld a little bit and it fit right in

and it sits solid and it doesn't move.

Oh, that's good. Yeah.

And it really it really rumbles nice compared to what it compared to what it used to be.

So with all the modifications that you've done so far,

have you done most of them yourself?

Yes, everything has been done myself.

Nice. Nice.

Maybe a friend or two helping me, but everything's been done myself.

Lowered it myself.

That's awesome. That's the hard part.

I'm sure.

Lifting it up, taking the wheel off, adjusting the coil over,

putting the wheel back on, lowering it, measuring fender height to the ground

and then getting that on all four corners.

Yeah, matching.

Yeah. Worth it, though.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, a couple hours worth.

There's a couple hours worth of work.

Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's fun when you can do the stuff yourself.

You know, whether it's repairs or just modifications,

it's just there's so much satisfaction from that.

You know, like, yeah, my son has.

Yeah, my son has a 2010 3.6 or outback.

Oh, nice. And yeah, we've had to do some work on it.

Most recently, we changed out the the front axle on the passenger side.

And we did that at a friend's house, Jonathan Subamu.

And because he has an impact wrench and he has the socket for the axle nut.

So I am lucky enough to be a mechanic and I have all of those things.

Yeah, I mean, I live in an apartment and I mean, he does too now,

but he has a garage and so we were able to just pull up in front of his garage

at the apartment and he's just got all of his tools in there.

So I've been to his house to do my breaks before I did my pitch stop over there.

And then we've done after nice.

Yeah, and we've done some other work.

But yeah, so we changed out my son's axle.

And then he changed out all six of the spark plugs.

Like 98 percent of it, he did himself.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's a pain.

But but hey, save the easiest way to do it is remove the battery

and remove the air box and you can get in there pretty good.

Yeah, that's what we did.

But on the on the flat sixes, it's a lot harder

because you got that the third and fourth or the fourth and sorry,

fifth and sixth all the way back.

Yep. And they're a little tighter than. Yeah. Than the others.

Yeah. So that was that was the toughest part.

But but I mean, we did it, you know, I think it took us like

maybe three and a half hours to do all of it.

But it was worth it.

You know, I mean, it was a good experience, too.

And then his AC discharge hose split.

And we had to get another one and we replaced that.

And so that was, you know, it's just been.

I mean, it's he's had some issues with it being that it's such an old car

and it has two hundred and fifteen thousand miles now.

But but those three sixes are pretty much bulletproof.

Yeah, that's what I've heard from everybody that's that they're very reliable.

Yeah. So I mean, it's still drives great.

But, you know, I told them, I said, if you got a car that was perfectly fine,

you wouldn't have learned anything.

So it's been it's you know, it's that is a motor Subaru should have kept going with.

Yeah. They they didn't.

They honestly could have put that in some STI applications.

That motor would have been a monster.

Yeah, they could have done a six cylinder turbo

would have just gone crazy.

Yeah, whenever his car dies, I'll just drop it in my cross track.

That would be so fun.

I have a dream.

I do have a dream motor built for my cross track.

Yeah, the two four, the two four new WRX motor.

Yeah. The F.A.

Two four is just it's eventually going to happen.

Yeah, that's what I've heard.

It's a good motor to put in there.

It's only one. I only seen one car done it.

But they repinned everything so that the motor

talked to the cross track computer and here in Vermont, I'm a little lucky.

Inspections aren't super crazy.

That's good. They're just looking for lights and stuff.

So I think I might try and once I get to that point, just

call it a rebuild car.

Call it a WRXV on the title and

they'll make it inspectable, probably have like the WRX brain

and transmission computers and all the electronics

from the WRX just put into the cross track shell.

Yeah.

So besides like lowering it, doing the exhaust

and then you've got the black hood on it, like and,

you know, obviously wheels and tires.

What are some other modifications you've done?

Like a lot of suspension stuff to keep

the alignment correct. OK.

So Subaru's as they get older, especially in New England, their rear end

alignment parts just rust up and get impossible to move.

So I bought aftermarket rear toe arms, lower control arms

to keep the alignment perfectly straight for the longevity in my tires.

That's I do have aftermarket headlights.

I've tinted my taillights because I like the matte black look,

but those are going to change eventually to some DLRs.

OK. For the gloss black to match everything else.

And done so much as just

rear wiper delete because I like how it looks without the wiper.

I have underglow in my front dash,

like by your feet. Yeah, it has a pedal commander

which is nice. It gives a little extra pet.

You have a lot more throttle usage.

Yeah, I still want to get one of those.

It's worth it. I've heard.

It's a great, great little

and I don't even run it in sport plus plus plus four.

I run it in sport plus two and that's like every day.

But if I'm getting up on the highway and I want a little bit more,

I just knock it up to the the plus four on the sport plus.

Yeah, definitely nice throttle.

It's in it.

Yeah, I've never one thing about the electronic

throttles is that like an inch of the throttle is there's nothing there.

Yeah. And then that's what the pedal commander does.

It takes away that inch of throttle.

The second you touch it, there's throttle.

Yeah, I've never driven a car with it.

So I don't know what the experience is like,

but I've just heard everybody say

that it's like one of the best upgrades you can do,

especially for a cross track because they're slow.

I mean, I wouldn't say it's the best.

I mean, there's probably other things you can do to.

Well, I mean, I think for the price

and just to get that little extra pep, you know.

Yeah, I do have a cold air intake to a real one

that goes to my out my fender and into my bumper.

Nice.

That's so that was one of the after suspension and stuff.

That was one of the first other modifications I did,

because that was expensive as well.

But next, hopefully is chassis mounted wing.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, hopefully it's just a $1,500 purchase.

Yeah.

What have you done to the interior or have you done anything?

Right now, interior is pretty stock.

Other than the underglow in the footwells,

eventually I'm going to do a rear seat delete

and two buckets, energy buckets with

harnesses and a harness bar behind them.

I do have a detachable steering wheel.

Yeah, I saw that.

No airbag light, which is really nice.

It's just kind of like a quirky thing.

It's all it's you don't see it on a lot of cars.

Well, it's you don't see it on a lot of newer cars

because airbags and stuff like that.

But yeah, there's there's a couple ways around that.

Do you have a different shifter, too?

Or no, I do have a billet works.

See, it's a CVT, so it's just an imitation.

It's a real shift knob on it.

And, you know, how a standard has the reverse lockout pull.

So that reverse lockout pull on my shifter

lets you get it out of reverse.

OK, yeah, because I was like pushing the button.

Yeah, but instead it looks like it's a standard.

I saw that and I thought it was a manual at first

and I got excited and then and then I saw later on.

I was like, oh, no, it's a CVT.

It will get a it will get a five speed swap with the two four motor.

There's just no use swapping it until I'm putting the two four in it.

Yeah, I'm not going to swap a tranny twice.

Yeah, no sense in that.

Yeah, work and money, not worth it.

Yeah, I could do it.

It wouldn't take too much work, but it would just be a pain to just do it again

after a year or two of doing it on just the regular motor.

Yeah, yeah.

So with your cross track, the way it sits now, what is your favorite mod?

Oh, my new exhaust.

Yeah, yeah, I love it.

It sounds so much better than the old one.

It's it's a huge improvement.

It rumbles like crazy in like that 1500 to 2000 RPM area

where you just barely on the gas is like, oh, yeah, that's nice.

It sounds so good.

And I can't wait to put UEL headers on it and just hear that all the time

when it ills. Yeah, what's funny is like whenever I got rear ended,

it pushed my exhaust forward and underneath.

And so like you have the muffler and then the pipe that connects to

the exhaust that goes up, you know, forward.

And so there's like that little connection and two flanges or whatever.

Yeah. And that got bent some.

So that was letting some air through.

So my you got a little bit of rumble from it.

Yeah, it was like what made me build my own exhaust.

Yeah.

When I when I first so I lowered the car a little bit and then

I had the stock exhaust on it still and that that black flange blew out

and it needed it needed to be replaced.

And I could have just got the stock stuff to come come from the cat back.

Yeah. Well, I didn't because it was more expensive to do that

and then build my own two and a half inch upgraded exhaust

that sounded way better.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then eventually with the version one exhaust

after I got my new tires and I went even lower,

the version one exhaust just it wasn't bent to fit the car.

It was straight piped.

I had custom built it and it was dragging in certain places.

I was like, I'm going to wear a hole in this.

And I almost did.

So I had to weld a plate to the bottom to protect the exhaust

until I got the new one figured out.

Yeah. Yeah.

So whenever whenever it got damaged, I was like,

man, it kind of sounds like a milder version

of a nameless performance exhaust or something.

So it's kind of cool.

It was interesting driving it because I was hearing that

and I'm like, that would be kind of cool

if it was like that all the time for real.

Yeah.

One of these days, I'd like to do a different exhaust,

but it's just I bet I've had other priorities

that I've had to take care of.

And yeah, it was really nice the way I did it

because while I built my exhaust

because I bought pipe off Amazon and I can weld,

but a buddy helped me weld the first one.

And a buddy helped me weld up this one too

because he's got stainless steel wire for his welder.

And just the first one was just basically a straight back piece,

two and a half into a with a couple

nineties into a muffler with one little resonator.

And the muffler didn't really have anything in it.

It's just a hollow shell with a piece of V steel in it

that just breaks up the exhaust.

And it was loud, but it it rumbled a little bit.

But the new one, it's so deep.

It's so throaty and it it pops sometimes.

Sounds good.

Yeah, that deep throaty sound is is really, really nice.

Yeah. That and the other night,

I hadn't heard it myself outside of the car

until I was I went to see a buddy and we were talking about it.

He hadn't heard it yet.

And it was sitting there running

and we're standing behind the car left the door open.

He's like, have you heard it yet?

I go, no, I haven't heard it outside the car.

I mean, I just I haven't even I haven't even thought about it.

And he just runs over, gets in and just revs it up.

And I was like, man, it's so deep.

Yeah, it's just like it's like when you hear Morgan Freeman speaking.

Deep, deep guttural voice.

Yeah, that's funny.

Got that Morgan Freeman exhaust.

Yeah, that'll be like that's going to become a thing.

Yeah.

So you have some sponsors for you build.

How did you go about getting them getting the sponsors?

And and who are the Empire?

I don't really do VVash anymore

because their products started to fall off.

So I really just do kind of Lowered Empire and Race Land.

I'm a I'm an ambassador for Race Land and their coilovers.

So the ambassadorship is pretty much works the same,

I think, as Subaru ambassadorship works,

except with them, they when you do referrals,

you get stipends and stuff like that.

So like, if you get enough people referring you,

they'll send you either money off things

or they'll send you a check or stuff like that.

And Lowered Empire is

it's more of just like a group.

They do sponsor.

I get discounts on all the Lowered Empire stuff

and I have discount codes for for Lowered Empire

to give to people.

OK, that's cool.

Nice. Are you pursuing any other sponsors?

Not really.

I'm kind of building my group, our crew into something

and we kind of want to turn

engineered elegance into a brand.

OK, yeah, that would be cool.

And the kind of just like a we want to regrow

the way the street scene used to be in the early 2000s.

Yeah. Modifying your car, crazy colors, all that stuff.

And in the unity and how awesome.

Like when we were growing up and these we saw all these old heads

that were creating these beautiful cars,

but they had a brotherhood and it was.

Not when anybody mess with that.

Yeah, it was peaceful.

It was it wasn't doing donuts in the middle of the street.

It was meeting in a Home Depot parking lot at midnight

to just hang out and enjoy each other's cars.

Yeah, maybe be a little obnoxious with your exhaust on the way out.

But that's not a big deal.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you're not being an idiot, kids.

Yeah, these takeover kids have ruined everything.

Ninety percent of them don't even have cars.

Ninety percent of them.

One guy has a car and three others come in the car with them.

And those three others are the ones ruining everything.

Yeah. Yeah, it's just it's gotten crazy.

Yeah, kids these days.

And that's well, that's what ruined Gatlinburg got ruined

because these kids rioted at a gas station

and the town shut the entire showdown.

So people who paid to go show their car

couldn't even get into the event center

because the police turned them away.

Yeah, everybody who had every vendor

who paid for a booth and was there already or kicked out

without the ability to sell any of the products that they brought with them.

They made specifically for that event.

So like there's a lot of companies that will have a t-shirt

and it will have the tag of the event on it.

Yeah. Well, nobody went to the event

so they couldn't sell any of the t-shirts.

So they've they've lost money and it's terrible.

It's terrible. What?

Just if you get if you can't be a productive member of society, stay home.

Yeah, they don't know to do that.

We just want to enjoy cars and that's it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's gotten pretty bad.

Some places, some places people just acting stupid, man.

So H2OI was first in Maryland.

And then it got pushed out of Maryland to Florida

because of people doing the same thing.

And I've been to I went to H2OI in Maryland and Florida.

And again, well, the Florida cops were a little bad.

But when you're modifying things like at that time, I drove a Miata.

And it was loud, very loud.

It had cutouts, but I could flip a switch and it would be normal exhaust.

They pulled me over a couple of times for it.

I was like, sir, my car does not have to follow your laws.

I'm not from here.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not registered here.

That doesn't apply to me.

Yeah, it's it'd be nice to if you could get things back to the way they used to be.

At least, you know, for a small portion of it,

to where people can just start coming in, thousands was the best in the import scene.

Yeah, everyone was just just about making their car blingy

and making it look pretty and and and making it go fast,

even though they didn't have to go fast.

Yeah, better times.

Much better times.

But when you go to a all Subaru inclusive show, everything's great.

Yeah, you don't have to deal with any of that.

Yeah, it's all everyone's so inclusive

and everyone is just nice to everybody.

They're respectful, too.

Yeah, they're respectful of each other and respectful of the event.

Yeah, because they want to keep doing it.

Exactly. Yeah.

And it's nice that Subaru puts it on.

Yeah, yeah.

That's why we keep having these events every year, because everybody behaves.

Yeah. So and it just it's kind of like I look at I look at Gatlinburg,

I look at H2OI and then I just think of, well, when's this going to happen

to Wicked Big Meet?

When's this going to happen to Subifest wherever?

Yeah, hopefully not.

I mean, it's hopefully not because I think the same thing about

like there's a show called Wolfscar here in Vermont, it's it's up north

and it's it's it's mainly for Volkswagen, but they include everyone.

And I just think, well, when's it going to happen to Wolfscar?

Because Wolfscar is awesome.

When's it going to happen to any IFO or import face off or anybody like that?

Like how long is it going to be before everyone shut down?

And then the whole community just is forced to go back into underground stuff.

Yeah, hopefully we won't get there.

It's like it's almost like you have to gatekeep some things from these new

knuckleheads because those knuckleheads have knuckleheads that ruin things.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's like they because they just don't know how to either

tell these other stupid knuckleheads no or yeah, I feel like

I just I just need to go to this place on my own and prove that

I can be part of this scene and not be part of the new problem.

Because that's that's a way a lot of the the import scene now looks at younger

kids coming into the cars, car scene, because well, are you going to bring

that that whole aspect of takeover with you?

Kind of thing, because that's who's doing it. Yeah.

No respect, man.

Yeah, that's what it comes out.

Either no respect or a lack of raising.

Oh, 100%. Yeah, I just lack of raising.

I think like what are these parents doing that are where these kids are just

I was acting like this in the street.

I got beat. I would have got whoop.

You don't you don't bring that kind of that kind of bad attention on your family.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

The world's gotten crazy, man.

Oh, so let's get back to some positive stuff.

Yeah. So obviously you live in Vermont.

Have you ever been to Vermont Sports Car?

I have. I've been to a couple of their yearly shows. Nice.

You can also call Vermont Sports Car and I think it's one or two

Fridays a month if you call like a week or two in advance

and tell them you want to come and they will have an employee

to pull the way for you and they'll meet you at the door

and they'll guide you all the way through Vermont Sports Car and show you everything.

Yeah, I want to do that at some point.

It doesn't cost anything. Yeah, they do it for free.

Yeah, it costs me to fly up there and have a place to stay.

It costs you to fly up there, but you actually go to Vermont Sports Car

and enjoy it for the day.

They just do it out of the kind.

They just want to show everybody and teach everybody what they're doing.

Yeah, no, I want to go up there sometime with my family to do it.

But it's probably going to be a couple of years.

But yeah, definitely want to go do that sometime because my daughter is pregnant

and so we won't be able to travel for a while.

But like I want all of us to be able to go and check it out.

So it would be fun.

When my buddy Matt.

I've gone up there before, but I've never done the guided tour.

He was like, well, he has a white STI and he was like, well,

we should plan a weekend and go do it.

I was like, yeah, I'm down.

It's only three three hours away.

Yeah, that's not bad.

And do we just drive up in the morning, do the tour and drive back home?

That would be nice.

Yeah. Have you done.

Have you ever participated in 48 hours of tri-state?

No. Have you heard of it?

No, I haven't. OK.

Yeah, they do that every year and they're they're gearing up to do it in 2026.

They do it in January.

I went out there in 2024 because Jeff, who goes by Slow Subis,

he'd been wanting me to come out there.

And so I finally went out there and it's a it's a great event.

You should look into it.

I don't know how far it is from you, but they.

Well, I travel all over New England, so I go to New Hampshire, Maine.

OK, because they start off at the SOA headquarters and then from there,

they travel out and like so like some years they've gone to Vermont sports cars.

Whenever I went, we drove all the way down to Indiana and went and toured.

Oh, wow, the plant in Indiana.

And that was that's really, really cool.

Yeah. So yeah, I'll send you I'll send you the link.

And yeah, it's it was really cool to check that out.

Yeah, because there's a lot of other groups I'm in.

I'm in another group called Upper Valley Subaru's and we do actually last year

on my birthday we cruise to Noble Lighthouse in Maine.

Oh, nice. It was a four hour cruise.

It was a beautiful day and we just had a beautiful pack of cars together.

And we went up and enjoyed Noble Lighthouse.

Then we all went out and got food and and I mean,

my wife stayed the night in Maine and then headed back the next day.

And that sounds nice.

It was so nice.

That's that's such that's the best part of the car community in general

is just getting together, enjoying your cars and then enjoying the company of each other.

Yeah.

Some of the hardest parts when we're doing cruises and stuff, it's like, who's going to lead?

Yeah. Who's going to lead?

Because then, like, especially in the tuner scene, you kind of you get on the highway

and then you never end up leading because everybody's just like,

and we're just like passing each other and enjoying ourselves.

And people like, aren't you guys ever worried about getting pulled over?

I go, we're not doing 90, 100.

Yeah. We're doing 10, 15 over and

cops not pulling over 30 cars. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to leave that pack alone

because the pack is just doing packed things.

Yeah. For 48 hours of tri-state, I think there was like

three or four groups because they have so many cars.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

But it was a lot of fun.

So I mean, and then you end up seeing like so many different Subaru's

and you get a chance to meet a lot of different people.

And that and then just going to SOA headquarters was really, really cool.

Yeah. So it was a lot of fun.

But I'd like to do it again at some point.

Yeah, I like doing big cruises.

I think I want to plan one with engineered elegance for

maybe going down like a Virginia beach. Yeah.

And and doing like a make the cruise down, do a slight little car show

and then head back.

We just want to we want to build something and and leave the car

community with something better than it is now.

Yeah, that would be fun.

It's any of I mean, I'm sure you've just got beautiful

scenery up there, too.

So you could just take a drive.

And it's a it's about to be that six months of the year where it's just miserable.

Yeah, I don't know anything about that.

We get miserable heat down here.

We get we get the ice and we get the snow and it's just like.

That's why I like.

Virginia Appalachian, they still get snow, but it's or the Carolinas.

It's not it does get kind of hot in the summer,

but it's not as cold in the winter.

Yeah, that's what I liked about Colorado Springs,

because because Colorado Springs gets cold and they get snow,

but they don't get like crazy snow and it doesn't get crazy cold

because just from what I've heard from other people

and then being there in January one time.

It really wasn't that bad.

They got a pretty big snow, which was really nice,

but it wasn't like, you know, some

nor'easter, as they call it, where you've got like some big storm.

We constantly get the nor'easter threats.

But I haven't had good snow in southern Vermont in over five years.

Yeah, just decent snow.

Not even decent.

We get an inch or two,

an inch or two, it rains for the next couple of weeks

and we get icicles everywhere and power goes out

because the ice is freezing, the transformers and stuff like that.

Like, well, shit.

And sometimes we don't even get snow in December.

Yeah, we had we had that pretty big ice storm here.

It was in I think it was in twenty twenty one.

Yeah, February of twenty twenty one,

because that was when I drifted my car on ice for the fur,

you know, snowy ice for the first time.

And there was a high school that my daughter used to go to

and they had this big open parking lot

and got out there doing doughnuts and stuff.

And but I was like, I was too timid, though.

Now I would have so much more fun with it.

Oh, yeah, you got to give it to it a little bit.

Yeah, like now last year.

We got a good bit of snow.

And then I saw I was I was doing doughnuts in my fork parking lot.

Parking lot was empty.

So I was just whipping some doughnuts after work.

And then the next couple of days it rained.

Melted all the snow.

Yeah. And it's like we didn't have snow on Christmas.

Hey, man, we almost never have snow on Christmas.

Yeah, but it was just like one of those things

that's like as a kid, yeah, had snow on Christmas.

Yeah. No, I know here on Christmas.

And then it's like even before, like because I was born October.

So at the end of the month, I start seeing

I would start as a kid start seeing snow a couple of weeks after Halloween.

Thanksgiving, we were getting snow,

which was good because it's deer season.

But like that's as a kid.

And now it's pushing back to like sometimes almost January

before we ever get some real snow.

Yeah, we had we had snow on Christmas Eve one year,

like years and years ago.

I think my son was like four or five and that was really cool.

And so Christmas morning, we woke up and it wasn't snowing,

but there was still some snow on the ground.

And then it lasted for like another day and a half, I think.

And then that was it. Yeah.

Yeah, we don't we don't get snow very often here at all.

And then when we do, it's like really bad.

Everybody's off the road.

Well, it's just like like when we had that big ice storm,

it was like we had a lot of power outages

for a long period of time, unfortunately.

And I don't think there's like a lot of people

getting into accidents and stuff.

I think people just don't get out as much because they just know to stay home.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Me, I was like, sweets, no, I'm going to get out and drive in it

because I have an all wheel drive and I want to experience it, you know.

That's a great thing is here.

So people come up from like New Jersey and stuff to come up here and ski.

So they know what the weather is going to be.

And they they bring their Tahoe's on snow tires on on summer tires, rather.

Yeah. And they're off the road and I just pull up in my lowered Subaru

and with all weather is on it.

And I'm just like, yeah, you're going to be stuck there for a while.

Yeah. There's five other five other of you stuck farther down.

Yeah, I went out to Moon Rocks for my 50th birthday

and was with some people out there and we were going by some plug.

That the snow that they got that year was like one of the hardest snows

they'd had in a long time.

It was like one of those record snows and I was there when it happened,

which is kind of cool because I got to see a ton of snow.

And there was some spots where you, you know, you pull off to put your chains

on and they were like, yeah, they don't require Subaru's to put chains on.

I'm like, that's awesome.

It's so cool with your with your cross trek.

How would you say that it best matches your personality?

It's different like me.

I'm I'm I'm a different person.

And when when I started building it, that mentality kind of hit through.

It was like, I just see lifted cross tracks everywhere.

Every Instagram I see it's either lifted or stock height on bigger tires.

I was like, and then I found like two guys

that were just had like the vision that I had

slammed big wing, just tuner style build.

That's just got a bunch of unique qualities.

Yeah, it's good to be different, you know, mix it up a little bit.

If you I don't I don't like with my car being I do everything myself.

I don't like being parked next to another car

and popping my hood and seeing the same thing under the hood either.

I like I like doing weird things.

Yeah, it's nothing wrong with that.

That's why I'm shooting for the two four eventually.

Yeah, it's going to cost so much.

It'll be worth it when you eventually get there, though.

Yeah, it's it may require a bank loan.

Yeah, because the way I look at it, it's probably better if I just buy.

A rear ended WRX 22 plus

and take everything out of it and get spare parts and all the stuff

that I need off of that rather than trying to single buy

and get the motor, get the transmission and then pick and choose other things

because I can always flip around and sell some parts, axles and stuff like that

if need be. Yeah, that's a good point.

If you could describe your cross trek in one word, what would it be?

Hmm, not an impressive.

I was actually at a Subaru show

only cross trek there lowered and I was parked next to a white

and present, but I went for the exhaust competition

and they announced my car and I was like, it's not an impressive.

It's not an impressive.

I'll say that.

Was this with your exhaust?

No, with the old exhaust.

Oh, OK.

But I kind of I know a guy who does badges.

He does the custom Subaru badges out of epoxy and carbon fiber

and they fit exactly as they should. Oh, nice.

On to the on the stock.

So I could send you his information if you're interested in that as well.

It just adds a nice little touch.

It's different than just putting a decal cover on because it lasts forever.

Yeah. And he does a very amazing job.

And he also makes little badges.

I'm either wondering about having him make a me and not impress a badge

and replace the track with it.

Yeah.

And then have him do the Subaru logos and stuff for me as well.

And then once I I finally swap it, I am going to have him make me a WRXV badge.

Yeah.

When when I call I called the shop yesterday

to ask them about what all was damaged, what all they need to replace and everything.

And they're like, yeah, well, you know, obviously we need to we're going to replace

the hatch, we're going to put new badges on it.

And I was like, can you not put the badges on it?

Yeah. Because I've I've wanted to debadge mine for so long.

And I'm like, hard.

Just yeah, I've heard it like really hard to get off.

And I said, just don't put the badges on it because I've been wanting to

debadge it and he was like, OK, I'll make a note of that.

Like sweet, man, that's going to be awesome.

The cool another cool thing is like if you don't have to debadge it,

you don't have to worry about sticky tape color differences from where the badges

were stock.

The easiest way to get it off is actually take a tire valve stem.

That's not in the tire and you put it in a drill.

Interesting. And after you you take fishing line and you cut the the badge

off itself and then you use that the rubber bottom piece that would be

sticking on the inside of the tire, sealing, sealing it and keeping the air in.

And you just turn that on the drill and it rubs that glue and it just grabs

it and takes it right off.

Good point. That's.

But you still have to deal with a color variation.

Yeah. From where the paint that has been seeing sun.

Yeah.

However long over many years.

Yeah. Now has that paint fade.

You're probably going to see something there.

Yeah.

But yeah, so I'm just going to not have any badges on at all.

Yeah, that'll look good.

Yeah. Because I've seen people I didn't think about it on my own.

I saw somebody else with no.

I mean, and of course I've seen other brands where it's debadged

and you know, and I'm like, I'm like, how did they do that?

And so I yeah, it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

It's a cool. It's always a cool little touch.

Yeah.

And there's plenty of guys doing carbon fiber and epoxy

that make really cool stuff, too, that you can always replace a badge with.

If you if you're like, oh, I would like something back there, though.

And then you there's a bunch of guys all over Instagram

that they make awesome epoxy and and carbon fiber stuff together.

And it looks really cool.

Yeah. How would you say that owning your Subaru has changed your life?

It's probably the most recent nicest car I've owned.

Yeah.

In reliability wise, I mean, suspension is great.

I mean, I had a Mazda six that was just the front end was falling apart.

I mean, it needed a whole rebuild and it was going to cost

upward to five grand to rebuild the front end.

And I was like, no, that's not going to happen.

So the exhaust was broke off on it.

And it was just a typical shit box.

We all we all know those cars.

And it was just just drove it and beat it every day.

And it was it would have needed tires.

It would have just needed everything.

And I was just like, I need to get into something reliable.

And that's where coming into the cross track came as it's reliable.

It's as a decent price.

And even though at first I didn't like it, it it was a it was a good choice.

Yeah. So it kind of it changed.

I was like, I could have bought something cheaper and cooler,

but I wouldn't have got reliability.

I wouldn't have got I would have been getting to work easily every day.

Yeah. And also having that hatch, I I do mobile mechanics as well.

I go, I have customers that I go and and do stuff in their driveway for them.

And I can I can do damn near anything out of the cross track.

Yeah. Having that hatch is just it's huge, man.

It's like I have a I have a full sized low profile jack in the back at all times.

Oh, which is nice, too, because I was actually just up in northern New Hampshire

or actually Maine was Maine, because I was all the way up for my

a conference for my work and a lady was had a flat tire on the side of the road.

Well, it's easy for me.

I got a full sized jacket and impact in the car all times. Oh, nice.

At all times, I just pulled over, stopped and helped her and put her spare on for her.

I was like, go to one of my shops here, right in about five miles away.

And they'll get that tire taken care of for you. Very nice.

Yeah, it's cool. Which was cool.

It's nice. It just feels good to help people.

Oh, of course. Don't expect that when that car pulls up and stops.

That's not what people expect. Yeah.

Yeah, I've seen that so much, too, with the Subaru community is people

just want to help other people, you know, that that willingness

and desire to just do good things.

And that's that's it's not hard to do the right thing.

No, not at all. And it can be little things, you know,

it's harder to do the bad thing than it is to do the right thing.

Yeah. And to make, you know, I mean,

you don't do it for recognition or anything, but you, you know,

to help make somebody stay or bring a smile to their face or something, you know,

it's like you can do that every day in so many just small little ways.

And yeah, it's it's rewarding to to make somebody stay

and bring a smile to their face or whatever.

It was nice that she she was an older lady.

She reminded me of my grandma and in my head, I was just like, she needs help.

Yeah. And it's it's the right thing to do.

It may tack another 20, 30 minutes on my drive back home, but I don't care.

Yeah. So what it'll take all of 15, 20 minutes for me to get done.

And I used to operate tow trucks.

She's like, but it's so dangerous that I can I can just get a tow truck.

I was like, why would you pay for a tow truck?

I'm right here. Yeah.

And I was like, I used to operate tow trucks.

This is this isn't dangerous.

The 18 wheelers are going to see me and they're going to give me room.

I know they will. Yeah.

And it's the other cars that I'm not too worried about, but they don't.

They don't really get over, which isn't a big deal.

And I just leave that jack arm sticking far enough out the road.

They get away from it. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't want to hit that jack arm.

Leave that sucker half down there.

Let's stay right away from it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think you'll always own a Subaru?

Yes. Yeah. That's good.

Even if I get to the point where

this one becomes modified to the point where it's not street legal,

I will always most likely own this car.

Yeah.

My wife is like, oh, yeah, in a couple of years,

you can just trade into a WRX.

They go, I don't want to.

Yeah. I bought the Crosstrek and I want.

I want a turboed hatch because Subaru no longer makes a turboed hatch.

Yeah, I know.

And that's the point of putting the WRX motor into the Crosstrek is

because they no longer make a turboed hatch.

Yeah. That's an impresa.

I've had some people say, like, whenever I posted about the accident,

they're like, oh, you can upgrade to a hybrid or you can upgrade to this.

I'm like, I don't want to get rid of my car.

Like, I'm so hoping that they will not, you know, total it out

because this is my car.

This is my first Subaru.

This is this is what got me into doing what I'm doing now.

I'm like, I don't want to get rid of it.

You know, I want to see how many miles I can get on my Crosstrek.

I'm at one hundred and thirty eight thousand miles with the original

with the original clutch still, which is kind of scaring me.

Wow, that's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of scaring me.

But I'm like, I don't have a job.

So if it goes out, I don't know what I'm going to do.

But you learn to do it yourself.

Yeah, I just line and you'll learn to do it yourself.

Yeah, I just got to have a place to do it.

That's the problem. Yeah.

But still, yeah, it's like I want to see how many miles I can get on on on this car.

And I want to keep driving it for as long as I can, man.

I love it. I love it.

It's comfortable. It's it's me.

It's yeah. Yeah.

We're using the car would just be like losing a part of myself.

Yeah, because there's a lot of people in the world don't get that.

My wife doesn't get the whole car scene.

She just it isn't her thing.

She loves lifted trucks and all that stuff.

I I like that stuff, too.

But she doesn't get the lowered scene.

She doesn't get all that.

And that's cool.

She doesn't have to like it.

Yeah, you don't have to get it.

I'm allowed to have my own thing and which is which is nice,

because it's nice when I go and do my own thing and then I can come home.

And it's just my thing.

And she may not be interested, but she does listen a little bit.

And even though she doesn't care about it.

Yeah, it's I mean, it's good to have.

I mean, you got to have your own things, too.

But then it's also good if you have support for those things.

Oh, yeah. You know, that's that's the important part.

But yeah, I mean, these these cars,

we end up personalizing them.

You know, it's because like I haven't done at that point, they're not just a car anymore.

And that's what certain people in the outside the car community don't get.

They look at it as a few thousand pounds of steel and wire and electronics

and rubber. And to us, it's more than that.

It's it's got a soul.

It talks. Yeah. It it has a name.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, like I have his name is Stella, Stella Blue.

Yeah, mine's Pearl, because I was an original because it was Crystal White Pearl.

But well, with with mine, I

when I saw the blue and I just first started thinking about a name,

I just found a thought of an old grateful dead song.

It's Stella Blue. Oh, yeah, there you go.

Yeah. You know, I mean, like the cars that I've had before,

I liked my cars, but they they didn't like mean as much to me as this car does.

And I've had other cars that meant a lot.

That I've gotten rid of and never should have.

My old 94 blades are never should have got rid of that truck.

Yeah, I had a 69 Ford fair lane with a straight six when I was 19.

And it eventually like through a rod or something.

But I didn't know anything.

I didn't know I didn't know how to fix it back then,

and I didn't have any money to fix it.

So I sold it to a junkyard for sixty five bucks.

And I'm just like, and then even back then, the the internet wasn't a thing yet.

Yeah, forums everywhere where where you could find out and learn how to do

those sort of things. Yeah, I think that's one of the greatest

thing about the car community now is that if you don't know how to do

something and you're willing to learn, there's somebody somewhere

on the internet with the information that is more than willing

to guide you through. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I found out that the noise that my car was making was not the axles.

And I replaced both of my front axles.

Oh, it turned out to be the viscous coupling.

And and so I got that replaced and I didn't do it myself.

I had a shop replace it.

But I found out what it was from other people.

And and then the axles that I replaced, like, you know,

I spent a decent amount of money because I got OEMs.

But like, I'm not upset that I replaced my axles because now I have brand new

axles after like a hundred and twenty something thousand miles.

But also me and my son did it together.

So it was like a great experience for us to do on part.

Yeah. And we learned something together.

You know, it was it was fun.

And that's a life skill he's never going to forget.

Yeah, exactly.

And I taught him how to drive it to you as a man.

So yeah, I want like I was like,

you're going to learn how to drive it because I want you to know how to drive it.

But is there anything else you want to share before we get into this last segment?

All right. Well, so this is the get to know you a little bit better.

But who is Dylan as in describe yourself?

Oh, I'm I'm a 30 year old mechanic from Southern Vermont that

starting to get into the management field a little bit rather than

plus my knuckles for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

I want to eventually own my own shop, run my own shop.

That would be cool.

Kind of do kind of do Subaru performance things.

Yeah, it's like everything about cars is.

I hate electric cars, though.

I hate hybrids. Yeah.

I don't think I don't think electric motors should be inside cars

or run your AC fan. Yeah.

Yeah. What is a favorite memory from your childhood?

Working on anything with a motor of my dad when I was a small kid.

Yeah. When I was a when I was a little kid,

my grandmother always used to tell me I would put my Fisher price

construction on with all my plastic.

Oh, that's awesome to be out.

My dad would be out in the driveway working on a motorcycle or working on a car.

And I would just go out there and lay under the car with him

or lay by the motorcycle with him and pretend I was working on it, too.

That's super cool. That's awesome.

Wow, what is something that makes you want to get out of bed every day?

Driving my car.

That's a good one. Yeah, driving my car.

I do too. I love driving my car.

Yeah, me too.

Oh, yeah, there's times when like I'd be on my lunch break or something

because I do well when I was working,

I was doing a lot of remote work.

And so there's times that I'm like, I just want to go out

and I want to get out of here for one.

But then, too, I'm like, I want to go drive my car.

So there's just times where I just need to

just get behind the wheel and drive.

It doesn't matter where it is.

Sometimes whether it's just a windy back road

or whether it's just going to the gas station.

Oh, 100. Sometimes I just need to get behind the wheel and drive.

And I enjoyed my car so much that it just it's a piece.

Yeah, even if there's no radio going and it's just exhaust noise

into the dark, it's just peaceful.

Yeah. Yeah, there's there's been times a lot more lately

where I turn the radio off and I just drive

and just listen to the engine, listen to my gears shifting,

you know, and and yeah, there's something about that to just go with no sounds.

Calming.

Very calming.

It's kind of like your brain can shut off

and just enjoy the the noise of the motor

and the noise of the exhaust and you can hear your RPM differences.

Yeah.

What is something that makes you want to stay in bed?

When I'm sick, I don't want to get out of it.

Yeah, that's just being sick.

Usually is the only only time I want to stay in bed.

I'm usually an early riser, so I'm up pretty early anyway.

So it's like

when the wife's in bed, she wants to stay in bed.

So sometimes I just get up and I mull around.

Yeah, just kind of like I get around downstairs,

put on my thumbs a little bit.

Yeah, no, I get that.

What is something that really scares you?

That's a good one because not how much scares me.

Well, that's I'd say leaving.

Leaving my loved ones behind without like

being able to take care of them.

Yeah.

Leaving them in a deficit where where something could.

And I couldn't be there to to be their problem solver.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, what is something that really excites you?

Anything with cars.

I love going to a car show or anything.

My wife says I'm too obsessed with cars.

Hey, that's my car in specific.

Yeah.

Hey, as long as she's supportive of that, that's cool.

Yeah.

What is what would be your best bit of advice

to give to someone about anything?

Don't let anybody tell you how to modify your vehicle.

Do it. Do it for yourself.

It's all it's all for you.

It's not for anybody else.

It's who gives a damn what somebody else thinks.

Yeah. Is it your vision?

Is it exactly how you want it?

And it may not be exactly how you want it right now,

but it's getting there.

It's going to be there and it's it may take you time to do it.

It may take you years.

It may take you months.

It may take you three days who know you may buy the car

off the lot.

And that's exactly how you like it.

Yeah. That's that's what you want.

Just be yourself.

Yeah. Don't let anybody but don't conform to what anybody else wants you to be.

I think that's some of the best advice that you can give to somebody

because I know that I mean a lot of people worry about what other people think.

I know I'm very I've been guilty of that my whole life.

Yeah. And I'm trying to get past that.

You know, I was guilty of that when I was younger.

It's not and it took a long time to just realize

who gives a damn what anybody else thinks.

Yeah. Life's life's not a popularity contest.

You got to be happy with yourself.

Yeah. That's true.

Yeah. It's you know, it's it's still a work in progress for me.

I mean, it's been something I've dealt with my whole life.

And yeah, I'm trying to get better about it.

But yeah, it's definitely I just kind of woke up one day

and realized like those people aren't making me happy.

But you know what I like doing makes me happy.

Yeah. But what's funny is like with me, like I with my car,

I'm exactly like that's exactly what I do.

Like my car is kind of what has been my outlet for me to your safe.

Now, like this is who I am.

Like I don't care what anybody thinks about my car.

I like I like showing it off the way it is.

You know, my car.

I don't have the craziest build out there

because I don't need to because of where I live.

I could I could have crazier stuff on my car just to have it on there.

But you know, I know a lot of people, especially people that are going off road.

They have a lot of purpose built cars

and they use the stuff that they have because of what they do.

But like for me, I don't, you know, I love my car the way it looks.

It's not lifted. It's not lowered.

It's, you know, stock height, but I've got different wheels and tires.

And, you know, a fair amount of decals and just a roof rack

with my tire spare tire up on the roof and and an awning, some ditch lights.

But, you know, it's nothing crazy, but it's also not stock.

And like the more I think the more I see it the way it is,

the more I'm like, I just I love the way it looks like I don't need to do anything.

And that's what that's what's important.

Yeah. So it's it's been a fun progress.

And, you know, I'm sure at some point I'll do something else.

But for now, it's like I just I love it the way it is.

I just keep going. I see things like I get at night.

I get into like that Instagram rabbit hole sometimes.

And like, I have I have two guys that have just Air Trek

and Eli Bish on Instagram.

They they both have just been in curations for my build

with how low they are and their big GT chassis mounted wing.

Yeah. It's just I saw those cars and I was like, that's what I want.

Yeah. And granted, they've done some different things that like I don't do

like Air Trek, he wraps every season of the of the year.

He's got a different wrap on his car.

Yeah. It's like every couple of months, the rap changed.

Like for Halloween, he did those little imposter dudes on his car.

Yeah. And that was pretty cool.

Yeah. Cool.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be a guest.

It was cool talking to you. Yeah.

Yeah, it was good talking to you.

But yeah, I hope you have a good day and hope you get some snow, you know,

for I hope sooner than normal.

I kind of hope it holds off.

Yeah, you want it, but you don't want it.

I want it, but I don't want it.

Like I like I like the cold, but I don't like it that much.

Yeah. Yeah.

I do like good jean and t-shirt weather.

That's like the best.

Yeah, that's pretty much my go to outfit.

That's that's the hardest thing about like Wicked Big Me.

I wish I could wear jeans and but it's also it's always so hot.

Yeah. At the beginning, it's the beginning of the summer, pretty much in

well, mid summer and it's just like we don't get a cloudy day.

We always get those really beautiful sunny days, but there's no shade anywhere.

Yeah, we put our pop ups up and we still get burnt.

Yeah, it was like that at

C.B. Fest, Texas, it was really hot.

Yeah. So yeah, enjoy the rest of your day and keep in touch, man.

Yeah, no problem. Have a great day.

You too. Hey, everybody.

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Subin you podcast.

Be sure to go give Dylan a follow.

His Instagram handle is slow underscore B.A.R.U.

So that's slow baru.

And again, he has a lowered cross track, which is pretty cool.

So thank you so much, Dylan, for taking the time to record with me and be a

guest on the podcast. Really appreciate that.

And I hope everybody has a great week and we will see you next Monday for

another Subi scoop and in the following Monday, Monday, December 22nd for the last

episode of the year, episode two, 18.

So have a great week.

We'll talk to you later.

Much Subi love, RAF.

The Subi New podcast is hosted by Raphael in a closet in Houston,

produced by Raphael in a room next to the closet in Houston and edited by

Raphael on a computer in the room next to the closet in Houston with music by

Luke Ruiz in another room in Houston.

You can find the Subi New podcast wherever you listen to podcasts,

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To support the podcast, please head over to patreon.com slash Subi New

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That's all for this week.

S&YE217 - Slow Baru

Volkswagen Jetta

Nissan R32

Subaru WRX

Jeep Commander

Mazda MX-5 / Miata

Subaru Crosstrek

Ford Fair Lane

About this episode

Original notes