Today’s Nice Price of Crack Pipe BRZ has seemingly had some bad luck over the course of its short life. Maybe its turbo motor and price tag will mean things are finally looking up for it and a new owner.


Think about someone you know, or have heard of, who is really attractive in one way or another, but at the same time is a major pain in the ass. By that I mean really high maintenance, a factor owed to them being maybe a prima donna or just batshit Bobby Brown girlfriend kind of crazy. Okay, now put that vision into car-form.

You might very well have come up with last Friday’s 2002 Audi S6 Avant with its six-speed conversion. Now, don’t get me wrong, old Audis can be wonderful cars. Hell, I own one! The thing of it is, once they get a few miles and years under their belt they tend to make unconscionable demands like a Sorority girl after too many Hard Mikes.


Last Friday’s S6 had a lot of miles under its belt. That meant that few of you were willing to pay its not insubstantial asking. That meant it fell in a 61% Crack Pipe loss.

So, few of years back I was having a discussion with car guy and beard owner, Johnny Lieberman about the merits of the Scion FR-S and the Subie BRZ. Loverman tented his fingers sagely and proffered that while the cars may appear similar, one was for drifting and the other for driving. Geez, I don’t know what they put in the beard relaxer he uses but that sure sounded like some Mr. Myagi wax-on/wax-off level bullshit.

I then back-to-backed each car out on the track at Willow Springs and I got what Leave-her-man meant. It was a barrel of monkeys to throw the FR-S into curves all kinds of sideways and then saw at the wheel to keep the very eager backend from coming around to say hello. In fact, it got around the track just fine, but the entire time it felt like I was trying to walk a very happy dog. The Subaru on the other hand just felt like it wanted to get it done and then go do it again. I didn’t count lap times, but I can tell you I did like the Subie better.


Let’s see how you feel about this 2013 Subaru BRZ Limited and its turbocharged two-litre flat four. We’ll get a bunch of stuff out of the way about it first. That engine happens to be the car’s second. That’s right, this car is four-years old and it’s on its second mill. The reason for the first one going tits-up wasn’t undue pressure caused by the JDL turbo addition. According to the ad, it was caused by hydrolock brought on by a particularly aggressive rain storm. Yes, what the eff indeed.


The new motor has about 16K on it now, and the car itself has about 50K. 25,000 of that total the seller says he added in his single year of ownership. Geez, did the driver’s seat ever not have an ass in it?


The JDL twin-scroll turbo kit runs somewhere in the neighborhood of five grand to buy, and includes a pair of fans to address the turbo’s additional cooling needs. That’s by way of bringing majorly hot exhaust pipes up in front of the engine and not giving the heat anywhere fun to go. I think the only issue with these kits is that the turbo is old-school oil cooled and not water cooled. Power here with the kit is claimed to be 300-bhp, or 100 more than stock.


Those ponies are run through a six-speed stick to the car’s somewhat fragile rearend. Coilovers and XXR alloys are additional custom elements, and the car is set up to run on flexi-fuel if that’s your bag.

Aesthetically the car’s in decent shape, although both front and rear bumpers are dinged up. That’s okay because the seller says it will come with new plastic, painted and mounted at both ends. He doesn’t say if it comes with the car’s wing however, or just the holes where it mounts.


Inside , there’s not much to see. The seats and dash seem to have survived the past four years without issue, and while there are a couple of gauges on the top of the dash, they don’t appears to be pointed at anything in particular.


The asking price for this interesting BRZ is $20,000, and remember that gets you cleaned up looks so ignore the dents behind the curtain. The title is clean, and the work dropping in the new motor is documented to have been done by a Subaru dealer who you would expect to have known what they were doing.

What you’re hopefully doing is planning on your vote for this Subie’s asking price. What do you think, is this turbo’d BRZ worth that $20,000 asking? Or, is this a car for drivers priced to drive away buyers?


You decide!




Minneapolis Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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