Photo : Craigslist

Making do with what you have is a hallmark of Yankee ingenuity. It’s also seemingly what gave us today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Forester with its adopted Eaton blower. Let’s see if its seller has been equally ingenious with the price.


One of the most common manifestations in dreams is that of falling. It’s just one mechanism in your subconscious mind’s arsenal for expressing anxiety, fear, and insecurity. I always try and remember that it’s not the fall that’ll kill you, it’s the sudden stop at the end. Of course those inevitably result in your being jarred awake.

Now that we’re all awake—you are awake, aren’t you?—we can deal with another kind of Dream, that being yesterday’s 1965 Honda CA77 Dream motorcycle. Based on the comments, many of you couldn’t help falling in love with that classy little Dream. That however, didn’t extend to the price, which at $1,600 fell in a 56 percent Crack Pipe loss.


The Honda’s loss was likely reflective of its unpolished nature. It was a ride that needed pretty much everything to at the very least be cleaned and inspected, and more likely be rebuilt or renewed. Today we’re going to look at a car that doesn’t seem to need anything, and on top of that, brings with it a lot.

This 1999 Subaru Forester represents from what is arguably the model’s tidiest edition. It’s more small wagon than crossover, but still exudes a tough as nails all-weather aesthetic, especially with the big hump on its hood.

I can hear your incredulity now as you retort “the what on the where, now?” Yep, there’s a massive off-center cowl-induction (sort of ) hump on this Forester’s hood. That seems cleverly to match the driver’s plane of vision over the instrument binnacle, and is there to cover an Eaton M90 Roots-type supercharger.


The blower is mounted on a riser above the Subie’s 2.5-litre flat four, and the whole set up makes the car look like something you might use to chase Mad Max around the desert.


The ad notes that the M90 came off of a 1998 Buick Regal and I’ll bet that Buick’s owner is baffled as to why he doesn’t have any passing power any more. In the Subie it comes with a set of quick-change pulleys to vary blower speed and represents only one of the engine’s upgrades. According to the ad the car also employs “ Brian Crower rods and valve springs, delta 1500 grind cams, je 11.5/1 pistons, equal long tube header, short shift, limited slip rear end, [and] 4pot fixed front calipers. ”

Hell, I only know what half of that means, and I’m too obsessed over the blower sitting on its own little shelf under the pop-top hood to care. I kinda want to hear the thing run too.


The seller says there’s 50K on the blown mill, and a total 250K on the car. He describes the condition in the ad as “good” and the pictures bear that out. The Acadia Green Metallic paint is losing its clear coat to the sun and the plastic on the bumpers and rocker moldings are taking on that sand dune pattern that they do over time. Aftermarket wheels look a little lost under the wagon’s 1.5-inch lift but a set of four coilovers that come along with the car could effectively change that.


The interior looks pretty nice for 250K with upholstery that has held up amazingly well, decent carpet, and a hatch area that’s not too beat up. A double DIN head unit by “JOYING” sits in the dash and I just have to say that learning there’s a stereo maker called “JOYING” is almost as surprising as seeing this car’s perch-mounted supercharger. TIL, indeed.


The ad shows a box of extra parts that comes with the car, which might be helpful in case you ever wanted to do it over in a factory restoration. Until then it’ll probably just gather dust in a corner of your garage like it most likely does in the current owner’s.


The title is clean and unless you live in a state with onerous emissions or safety inspections, the registration shouldn’t be a problem. It also, it should be pointed out, is wild as shit.


The asking price is $3,500 OBO. We don’t do OBO and honestly I’m surprised that the seller didn’t know that. What was he thinking?

You’ll now need to start thinking, and then voting on that price. What do you think, is this weirdly supercharged Subaru worth that $3,500 asking as it stands? Or, is that price just too much to blow?


You decide!




Colorado Springs, CO Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Travis Kelly for the hookup!



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