Jalopnik
We saw the Gremlin beat the Spirit by quite a margin in our last Choose Your Eternity poll. Maybe it was the Wayne's World connection, or maybe it was just the obscurity of the AMC Spirit. Either way, we're going to follow up a pair of quirky American machines with a pair of equally quirky Japanese machines. Sure, Subaru is plenty mainstream in North America these days, but remember when Subarus just seemed vaguely weird, say a couple decades back? When you only saw the little boxer-powered cars in areas with huge amounts of snow and NPR listeners? Those 80s Subies are semi-rare and quite cool, not as bulletproof as your Japanese Big Three machines of the era, and parts are getting tough to find... which makes them great raw material for your exile adventures in the garage!
The acronym behind the Subaru BRAT's name stood for "Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter," which doesn't sound as good as "Leonamino," but we can't fault the marketers for going with the safe bet. The whole concept of sticking a truck bed on the Leone and then throwing some lawsuit-magnet jumpseats in the bed in order to claim carhood and avoid the Chicken Tax didn't work out so well for Subaru in the long run, though you might want to retrofit such seats onto this 1986 BRAT ('86 was the first year the vehicle arrived on these shores without the extra seats). One think you won't need to retrofit, however, is the T-tops, because that critically important option is present and accounted for in this truck, which can be yours simply by trading "almost anything as long as i like it" to the owner. There's rust. There are many dents. It's been sitting for a long time. You know, the usual. How about swapping in a turbocharged EJ25 and giving your jumpseat passengers the last best road trip of their lives?
We like the BRAT, but maybe your 80s Subaru Hell Project needs less cute and more weird. How about a car with TR7-esque wedge-shaped styling and an interior designed to resemble the cockpit of a 747? Yes, we're talking about the Subaru XT, which was available with a six-cylinder, all-wheel-drive setup that was pretty damn wild for its time. These things aren't easy to find, but we've done the work for you by locating this 1989 Subaru XT6 for just $500. Five hundred bucks! How can you lose? This one needs both head gaskets replaced (possible translation: both heads cracked), but it's had $2,000 worth of "recent parts" installed. There's rust. We suggest getting really good head gaskets when you start working on this project, because this car is just crying out for all the boost your wallet you can stuff into the engine!
Comments
Brat has utility ... the XT6 doesn't, therefore, is more hellish.
Scoobamino!
Can the XT6 do stoppies? C'mon, the BRAT is jalopnik royalty.
There's one parked up the street from me. It's got an autobox and tiny little 4 lug wheels, but still I yearn for it...
I went with the Brat. Not because it is inexpensive, and built to stay that way, but because I think this one is haunted by octogenarian nude-portrait model Ruth Gordon.
I had a blue '86. Great beater until the rear end fell out, at 25 mph.
The more hellish ride will be the XT6. This is the first or second year for the flat 6, and with AWD, good luck keeping it running. It already needs head gaskets, so that's my choice. And besides, it's very ugly as well!
BRAT=Next
This is a factory -amino waiting for an STi motor...
The hell factor comes from trying to get the suspension to handle 300hp
I actually fell asleep looking at the XT6. Brat all the way. It has SPICE.
I remember being a kid and absolutely loving the XT. So, it gets the sentimental vote.
A little o/t, but even though you're refering specifically to the car, that phrase seems rather appropriate, "the obscurity of the AMC spirit."
Also, although the sensible option in either case is to swap in a WRX drivetrain, I'm going with the XT6 FTW (either way, the acronymity of these cars is infectious). The BRAT although weird, is a Leone/Loyale/GL/DL underneath. They're like little rusty Japanese Volvo 240s. The XT6 was rare when it was new, and almost mythological now. Plus, Elizabeth Perkins drove one in Big, so it's got that going for itself.
Not only does the BRAT score 227 against the XT6's 134 Jalop points, but it's also the same age as me! Plus, when it breaks down, you can whine about how "that stupid brat keeps giving me trouble."
The XT6 would be a good car, and it would require more work than the BRAT - and that's assuming a full engine and transmission replacement. However, at the end, you would not have an AWD lightweight El Camino with loony truckbed-seats, and that's just too awesome to beat.
@Maymar: Not to be an asshole, but go back and take a look at Big again. Ms. Perkins drove an '87 XT Turbo, the year before the XT6 was introduced.
Now the only reason why I know this was the fact that I took a job at a Subaru Store (for only 120 Days) and my first exposure to an XT6 was a Dealer Demo I sold that was used by a very young NHL star named Kevin Dineen (of the Hartford Whalers). His contract with the dealerships (they included separate Volvo, Saab, Subaru, Pontiac and Dodge stores) stated that he was given a new demo every 6 months. This particular XT6 needed a lot of paint touchup (the roof had scrapes from portable ski racks), and the belts squealed when the car was cold. So, what type of car was traded on this XT6? A Champagne Plymouth Caravelle!
My Mom had an XT6. It was hell to get into and out of. It had those stupid electric seatbelts that always seemed to capture my arms when I wanted to get out of the car. I think it also had pneumatic suspension. My Mom's friend had one when they were relatively new. The all digital dash is kinda cool until it goes out all at once. Yes, I live in the NPR/rain/snow land of Western Washington and the Brat is all too common a choice for PCH hell. Choose XT6.
The first set of truck nuts I ever saw was hanging from a college roommate's XT6. It blew a head in the middle of Nevada and he bought a Corolla. He still misses the XT.
@UDMan: Right, yes, probably. No, yeah, no worries, my mind just blanked on the 4-cyl model (busy day, tell me why, I don't like Mondays).
I want them both, but had to vote for the BRAT. I want it more.
Tell me again am I voting for the car I am least likely to try and rebuild, or the one that will give me the most trouble?
The Brat has moxie with the decapitation in a rollover truckbed seats
But I think alot of peeps here have overlooked the pure WEIRDNESS of the XT6 in their jalop-mino blindness ( i love a mino like the next guy)
the XT6 has almost Citroen SM levels of "uniqueness" like the L shaped steering wheel..the trick door handles..the Pole Position Digi Dash..the Pistol Grip Shift Knob...
goes on and on
+ Watch video
its a Turbo not a XT-6 but you get the idea
Definitely XT6. The Brat is a project for sure, but there's light at the end of that tunnel... a hoon-worthy car that could be fun! More work on the XT6 just brings you closer to the pure hell of owning and driving it.
My buddy has a Brat project car. Hellish, but only about the first or second circle. With white rims, big knobbly tires and a orange/brown paintjob, it'll be a sweet ride.
The XT-6 on the other hand will be both hellish to fix and completely pointless when you have done so. Plus, you can hold giant doors open with its wedging abilities.
XT6 because rare impractical cars are what PCH is all about!
I had to vote XT6 in honor of my first boss, a Honda service manager who believed (still in 1994) that the XT6 was the greatest car ever conceived. Sadly, he could not afford one.
The XT6 wins by virtue of being an oddball variant of the already oddball standard Subaru platform. The 6 cylinder is an embiggened version of the EA82 engine, but it has few enough parts in common to ruin your life, or at least your finances.
Also, the ad doesn't specify if this XT has a digital dash or not (they didn't all have it), so that's a crapshoot in it's own right.
Realistically, a turbo XT is vastly less hellish.
Then again, both of these cars are guaranteed to be rusty as hell.
As a previous older Subaru owner I had to go XT6 on this one. There were lots of guys who made really cool serious off-road brats without much trouble though, but an XT6 is completely useless and way more impossible to find parts for.
However, the real reason for my vote comes from the desire to put a lift kit and some 33s on an XT6 and make the most Jalopnik creation every conceived... You could even cut up the back and make an XTmino if you really wanted to....
Gimme an X!
X!
Gimme a T!
T!
Gimme a 6!
6!
What does that spell?
Hell!
I'll tell you what "XT6" does NOT spell: "Zazz."
That thing lacks the ephemeral quality we know and love as zazz.
It is without zazz.
Zazz-challenged.
Sans zazz.
Gotta go with the BRAT, even if there're no seats.
"Semi-rare"??? You obviously don't spend much time around Seattle. The only thing semi-rare about a Subaru around here is finding one without a rainbow window sticker.
giving a 1 rating for attempting to "type" the 80s sube, there is 3 in my nighborhood several decades old hardly rare, original, daily driven,and I could care less what npr is. The xt6 is a lunatic closer to the 5 main engineering retard we know today, I go with the three main engine, the brat. I hate brats, but I hate the xt6 even more. not much love either way...but the brat resale seems to be as equal as the xt6.
besudes the brat could get a 200hp supercharged aviation engine to complete project heaven.
XT6, easily. Having been in one, or at least a turbo four model, I can say, with conviction, that someone on the design team must have gotten ahold of a Citroen SM, and said "Hmm, you know, this is kind of cool, but I bet it would be better with a turbo and All Wheel Drive!"
@cazart: Stop saying zazz.
The Brat. Poor seller, his run on sentence lasted forever. Plus 2 seats in the bed is Red Neck all the way.
I once owned and drove into the ground a BRAT. When I had one, I really wanted an XT-6, but now, with the perfect 20/20 vision of hindsight what I really want to do is figure out a way to mount a BRAT body (including self-ejecting rear seats and a chrome roll bar with rally lights) on a late-model STi chassis. That is my version of Hell.
Gotta go with xt6. It will wrap you up with its siren song of: "I'm a subaru, we're like lego. You could have an STI motor in me in a weekend..." Then clobber you over the head with the nothing-lines-up stick.
And even if you persevere, you still end up with a door stop which, if by some miracle you manage to convince a woman to sit in, will guaranty that you do not get laid.
Don't forget the huge amount of one-of-a-kind electronics in the XT6:
Early electronic transmission
Digital instrument cluster on steering wheel
Electronic 4WD (the BRAT just has a little brake-handle type shifter)
Load-leveling suspension
And don't forget the special electrohydraulic power steering that takes dealer-only fluid.
Normally I'd go with the BRAT... I mean it's got a truck bed. But given that we don't know what that guy likes, and the XT6 is going for the LeMons friendly price of $500 asked, I had to choose it.
I'm not offering a trade of anything to a guy with the handle "psychoholic"--so by default, it's the Xt-Files.
I'd take the XT6 for the primary reason that I would drive it backwards and pretend it's a Porsche 959.
In Achewood as soon as you go to Hell you get a BRAT to drive. However I voted for the Quattro flat-6.
I'm going with the Brat, just because for a perfect PHC you can't do better than a vehicle bought from someone who goes by the name of "Psycholic".
I've never heard of the Brat, but I want one now.
Hold on fellas and fellettes, Ive got yer utimate PCH poster child:
Twin turbo XT6 with Citroen flat 4 moter. Case closed.
The XT-6. I mean, it has not one, but TWO blown head gaskets!
Plus, it's on the weird side, even for Subaru. I'd have to rank the SVX a notch higher, just 'cause it was double-whopper-size windows.
Plus, the BRAT might have the cycloptic third headlight behind the grille emblem, which while bizarre, is kinda cool. T-Tops, neat. Pickup bed OEM seats, even if you have to retrofit, neat. Real 4WD, neat. XT-6, though...ugh. A technological nightmare worthy only of the crusher.
I'd forgotten how hideous that digital dash was. I love the orange LCD. Sheesh.
I'd like to tell the guy explaining his dashboard you CAN make the boost register without moving. Just set the parking brake and slip the clutch plenty. Not a problem... With any luck, it'd catch fire.
I was fully planning on voting for the BRAT, but the digital dash + potential for a Ray Ferraro edition XT-6 out there somewhere made me change my vote.
Years ago a friend had a first-gen BRAT, and was always crapping it up with cheap add-ons. He had the windows tinted, and had them carve B R A T in tint across the top of the windshield. The only problem was that the R looked more like an A, so it looked more like B A A T. So that's what we all called them then, and still.
Because of that, I had to go with the XT6.
in Australia, only the coupe would be hell. the Brat (or Brumby in Aus.) is legendary among farmers and dirt bike riders. parts are cheap and plentiful, and they're easy to work on