Scooby Memories

We recently said goodbye to our second Subaru Impreza. Himself has had a long history of affection for scoobies, so he’s going to help write this post. He’s a self-confessed petrolhead, long since a member of various web forums, lover of Top Gear and The Grand Tour, huge consumer of motor racing autobiographies, and if you knew the names of large and small boys… well he certainly had a lot of influence in those choices. Not least of these symptoms has been his regular attendance of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He went every year between 2001 and 2008, then we got married and he had the year off. Then he was back again on and off between children racking up about 12 attendances so far (I’ve been stuck on a lowly six since the last one, pregnant with large boy).

Blue Scooby

Himself has always wanted a Scooby, he started with a sensible for a 20-something bloke Vauxhall Corsa. Then upgraded to an Alfa Romeo 156 TwinSpark with a massive spoiler – the quintessential Alfa with typical electrical eccentricities.

Finally, we’d got jobs and bought a house and the Alfa had tried to kill itself with a muntaj deer to the wheel arch so he finally got his wish and found himself a 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX with the ProDrive Performance pack – essentially the same performance as the ubiquitous STI. I was thrilled to find it had a less ridiculous spoiler and metal grey wheels rather than the extremely tacky gold alloys. It was a big step up to 265 BHP, a turbocharger and what a noise it made!

On top of all that, the Blue Scooby came with that rally pedigree – from Colin McRae in the 1990s in his 555 to Pettar Solberg in the 2000s. McRae in particular was a hero of himself’s boyhood – a Scot with charisma and such amazing driving skills (if you don’t know what I’m on about, start with this). Himself had been taken to watch various rallies in the forests of Scotland by his dad and there his love of Subarus had begun. It was inevitable that he would own one at some point.

Blue Scooby took us all sorts of places. Several times to the 24 hours of Le Mans, loaded with four adults, three tents, a petrol generator, a mini fridge and goodness knows what else. Back and forth to himself’s parents in Scotland. Getting himself to work in the snow and getting stuck in and dug out of 3 foot snow drifts when he got a bit ambitious. Ending up sideways in a snow filled ditch that looked like flat verge and then pulled out by a nice man with a Landy and a rope to get me to what was almost the most expensive hair cut ever. To and from hospital for the births of both boys – very slowly while in labour with large boy and very carefully home with both of them after C sections. To my parents’ house with a 4 week old large boy, at such speed that some nice policemen waved at us on the A1(M) encouraging a bit more self-restraint but kindly not stopping us to say so forcefully.

Blue Scooby was the “blobeye” second generation of Impreza WRX, homologated from the race version driven in the World Rally by Petter Solberg.

White Scooby

After 4 and a half years of companionship, Blue Scooby was starting to accumulate rather a lot of miles and we decided it was time to find a new car. After much wavering, himself settled on a 2014 fourth generation Impreza WRX – skipping the hawkeye that I liked and the comedic hatch back third generation monstrosity. A very thorough search of local and then not-so-local garages eventually turned up a white, low mileage example about 3 hours drive away.

So after himself had negotiated a part exchange for Blue Scooby, we took 3 and a half year old large boy and three month old small boy on a day trip to find White Scooby.

While I found White Scooby to be very much comparable to Blue Scooby, himself always protested that he just didn’t have the same oomph. The characteristic growl was missing – I wouldn’t hear himself arriving home in White Scooby until he pulled into the drive whereas I’d heard Blue Scooby turning off the main road a hundred yards away. The loyalty and nostalgia for Subaru was certainly partly responsible for himself’s choice of another Impreza. But that loyalty wasn’t quite rewarded with the joys that were hoped for. There were mutterings of plans for an exhaust upgrade – a lot of money just for more noise I thought – but they were never fulfilled.

The Opposition

I’m not even going to discuss the Mitsubishi Evo here. I’ll be generous though, and tell you that Eddie at Yorkie… Not Just for Dads knows all about them.

The Replacement

We’d had White Scooby for 5 years, largely uneventful. No alarms sounding with a bit of dust or no eating deer like the Alfa. No new windscreens every time himself got anywhere near the back of a lorry or last minute suspicious rattles on hearing of its departure like Blue Scooby. White Scooby was well cared for and handsome, but himself never felt the passion he did for Blue Scooby. He was missing that feeling of being kicked in the small of your back when you put your foot down, or as I experience it – the feeling of jumping to warp speed 9.

So began the hunt for a replacement. Many options were pondered, opinions gathered and investigations made. VW Golf R? No. Hyundai i30N Performance? No. Audi RS3? No.

Ford Focus RS, 2016, 350 BHP, fantastic bright blue and kicks you in the arse beautifully. Yes.

Himself is very pleased indeed.

Its been christened Ægir by large boy (Rick Riordan fan at the moment) as a lord of the seas because its blue. The SatNav is Rán goddess of the sea. A bit more imaginative that Trucky McTruckface (aka Tallulah) and Nigel the SatNav for my Isuzu D-Max Blade.

After nearly 10 years of scooby ownership and many happy memories, a new era has begun. Himself is already talking of keeping this car for 10 or 15 years, it must be love.

PS Himself didn’t help much after all. He said he’d tell me facts if I asked questions, then got distracted by scouring eBay for Scalextric.