I never thought back when I was a lad that I would ever be able to own a Scooby. All the things you hear about them and their costs as an outsider etc, and the whole 'stay away from grey imports' thing. (If only I knew Gary Moulson back then)

So not really expecting to buy one I mooched around on Auto Trader / eBay motors for a bit, looking for a suitable Impreza and the costs.

There were prerequisites when I set out in search of my car, and at 24yrs old they they did not include the word "turbo" :

Had to be an automatic
Had to be blue
Had to be a saloon

Low and behold, I found a UK-spec Reddish Blue 2.0 AWD Auto GL in Bedfordshire for £3200 so after making insurance enquiries, my dad came with me to check it out.

If you've ever seen a standard GL with no spoiler, no bonnet scoop, and only hubcaps, you'd not be impressed!

But I knew what to do to transform it - first, it would get new wheels, then a spoiler, a new bonnet, bumper and some side skirts!







So I bought the car in Dec 2004, and kicked off by buying some alloys off a guy in Essex in Jan 2005, then came the much needed cosmetic enhancements.

After this photo was taken, I had the windows tinted.







Later I bought some 17" OZ Prodrive p-wrc1 multispoke alloys from a chap in Wales.

Here is a pic of my car taken at a Surrey Scoobies meet, (Feb 2006 IIRC), prior to more recent mods detailed further down the page.

Since the above photo was taken the interior has been upgraded, and the rally graphics have been replaced with a high-grade material. The new decals also have a drop-shadow effect, just like the real SWRT cars had...

Click for full size image. Here you can see my custom plate, obviously for security purposes part of the reg is masked, but 555 is a famous sponsor of the SWRT.



The car sported this look between 2007 and Aug 2008 (from memory).

Then in 2008...