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Watch This Subaru WRX Slog Through The Mud Pit At The West Coast Subaru Show


Watch This Subaru WRX Slog Through The Mud Pit At The West Coast Subaru Show

Subaru folks are a bit rabid about their cars, and for good reason. The turbocharged flat-fours are torquey, the AWD system works great, they can haul ass, and they can play in the dirt just as easily. Subarus are the third most off-roaded brand, behind Jeep and Ram, in the United States.  You can pretty much assume that rally and in particular, Colin McRae, as well as the original Subaru Outback advertising campaigns with Paul Hogan are part of the inspiration for legions of dirty Imprezas as well as a Subaru owners’ tendency to be doing something outdoors a lot more often than any other brand…including Land Rover.

This footage is from the 2013 West Coast Subaru Show, which was held in Longview, Washington. While there is a show-and-shine, a lot of the cars go out and play on the rallycross course, and some of them even play in the mudpit. This particular WRX, even at street height, went in and made a couple of runs at the pit, turbo going and all. This car isn’t lifted at all, I’m actually pretty sure it’s been lowered a bit, yet I’ve seen trucks get stuck in a lot less mud than this. No, it’s not mud bogging, but it’s still good fun. This is precisely what a do-it-all car should be.

(Editor’s note: This is one of the more punishing things we have seen done to a stock looking car off-road. The little four banger must have been nuclear hot by the time the guy go through flogging it in the mud and the repercussions for this jaunt will be long lasting. Think the guy spent hours under the car with a power washer the next day? We don’t either. That means that there was mud, sand, and who knows what else jammed up in every nook and cranny under the car. While it isn’t the caustic salt of Bonneville, that junk can certainly become a hassle over the long term. Pretty wild that the thing lived, especially on the engine front because there’s lots of work going on at very low speeds for an extended period of time. We would have loved to seen the temp gauge was all of this was happening.)

Remember, kids…

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 Click play below and watch a WRX throw some mud around!


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4 thoughts on “Watch This Subaru WRX Slog Through The Mud Pit At The West Coast Subaru Show

  1. Dave

    had a 95 tercel wheni lived i Northern Idaho- drove on roads like this every day(i had studded snow tires)

  2. Nick D.

    Subarus are definitely capable offroad. My ’93 Loyale 4WD wagon with it’s 85hp 1.8L flat-four, pushbutton 4WD (not AWD) and 3-speed auto, will go pretty much anywhere I want it to. I’ve bombed along in 12″ of snow at 45mph without it skipping a beat and towed some much bigger vehicles with it too.

  3. floating doc

    When I met my wife, she had an 85 Wagon with the 5 speed/4×4 combination. It was painfully slow, but amazingly competent off-road. I slid into a culvert on ice covered pavement and ended up at a 45 degree sideways tilt with both left wheels down in the culvert and hard against the curb and snow up the the windows. Drove it out!

    After that we started using it for a beach car. In four-low it was almost unstoppable. I remember climbing a soft, nearly four foot tall, almost vertical berm from the hard-pack with ease. I tried that in my TRD Tacoma in four-low with the locker engaged and it took three tries!

  4. Nick R

    I had an 89 XT6 and that is EXACTLY how I drove it. Whenever the fellas would go hit the sand bars in their Jeeps and Scouts…I was right there with them!!

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