Down On The Mile High Street: Subaru Justy GL 4WD
Denver is home to plenty of AMC Eagles, BMW 325iXs, the occasional Vanagon Syncro, and just about every other oddball four-wheel-drive vehicle made. Until yesterday, however, the only Justy 4WD I’d ever seen was this Crusher-bound example. Then this extremely clean red Justy 4WD showed up in my neighborhood.
Is it sick to want one of these things? With three cylinders and (in most cases) a misery-enhancing CVT transmission, it’s tough to explain to normal folks why anyone might want a Justy as a winter car.
But who cares? This thing is probably rarer than an Aston Martin Lagonda!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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There is/used to be a lady around the corner from my best friend's mom and down the street from my old Apartment who had a teal green 2wd 3-door Justy. An older lady owns/owned it and it looked brand new. I think I looked one time as I walked down the street and it only had 69,000 miles. My dad had the big brother of the Justy, the old-school 4wd GL Hatchback. My dad loved that car, my mother hated it. I wish it was still around. I'd be driving that thing.
I sold a bunch of these Justys. Remarkable cars in the snow. I worked at Burt, the largest in the US then for 25 years. They started at 5995 and invoice was 5770 or something like that. It was designed as an entry level car to gain loyalty for future owners. They were actually pretty peppy, had 90 HP and the ECVT automatic was nice to drive around town. They did not weigh much, but had a good HP/WT ratio. You could buy one (base DL manual) and have 130 payments. The ECVTs had problems, they sold the technology to Nissan. They lost their glamor in the mid 90's as the big SUV market exploded.