Rubbish Cars We Love: Subaru Justy Mk 1: Justify Our Love

This has to be the weirdest car we have owned over here at hecklerspray. Like a child with two heads it was useful, just nobody ever knew what for.

Ejector Seat:

A big red button on the gearstick… any ideas? You climb inside the Subaru Justy - old enough to hold its own bank account, print all rubbed away from the switches - what else could you assume from a hatchback with 4WD scrawled on the side.

What seriously, it goes off-road?

Press that button and it actually did. Just so long as you had a full tank of petrol on stand-by first.

The Subaru Justy was released to a comatose-with-laughter UK public in 1986. It was the world’s first vehicle to feature ECVT. No, not a new glove puppet alien for Saturday morning TV, a revolutionary type of transmission configuration offering limitless gear ratios. It was an unbelievably hard sell for dealers.

People are not stupid. If this EVCT thing is so special why bung it on the Justy? It is much like sending the TA or National Guard in first during a war, Subaru were merely testing the water. Moreover the EVCT transmission system was dropped for the Justy’s last stab at the market in the mid-nineties. It seems Subaru were sick of throwing good ideas after bad.

Jeep:

The Justy was marketed as a variable four or two front-wheel drive supermini. A concept so ridiculous it makes the new Range Rover Sport’s non-split tailgate seem like the Da Vinci Code. Nip to the shops and drive home through a field, was that really what Subaru had in mind? The boxy frame was as ugly as sin too.

If you wanted to look as though your car was made of cardboard, you brought a Subaru Justy. If you liked appalling side graphics with the cool factor of a side parting, you brought a Subaru Justy. Naturally then, we brought a Subaru Justy.

It was a ride that our companions found not only funny, but also slightly perplexing. “It’s a joke, right?” one of them commented. Pointing to the red button normally made a bit of difference - until you told them what it was for.

Eventually you learn to love the Justy for the same reason that everyone else hates it: personality. When other small cars were saying ‘cheap and economical’ the Justy was saying ‘Eh? We’ve got no idea either’.

Safety:

Referencing the reliability of an old hound is normally a pointless exercise. For every person who agrees it was dependable and true, another two say they had to replace everything from the headlining to the ashtray.

The old Citroen AX is a classic example. Most people would claim it let you down more often than a retractable walking stick, but we found it saved our life, literally, when we decided to go diving off a ravine in a freak snowstorm. Similarly the Justy’s safety and reliability report is generally good. For us ‘good’ meant shock absorbers popping up through the rear wheel arches, clutch cable snapping at the world’s busiest junction and more rust than a late-sixties Mini.

However, that 4WD feature really wasn’t a joke. Snap the button, listen for the clunk and you were away. The Justy became a sturdy little monster under the steam of four wheels, and suddenly it was not so funny anymore. Things became even more impressive when you realised you could engage 4WD at speeds of up 20 mph or so. Though that did put you in about fourth gear for a straining 1.2 litre. All guts and no gusto, we’re afraid.

Plenty:

The used market is never short of a Subaru Justy or two. Most of these are advertised via newsagent windows or quiet whisperings in the pub. Whether or not this is down to the sheer embarrassment of having owned the thing is debatable.

We have managed to locate a good, clean example of a Subaru Justy on eBay. It won’t break the bank, but is not too cheap so as to arouse suspicion. Have a look and a bid; that’s how the game works.

The Subaru Justy is one of those curiosity cars. As a marketing concept we cannot believe the idea ever made it past the first meeting. It may well have been an experiment; Subaru went on to create an excellent permanent 4WD system for use in the Legacy. After that milestone the still underrated and overused Impreza took up the bulk of the company’s time, and still does. In 1994 the little Justy was lost to the midst of time, some wondering if it ever really existed at all.

A wandering ghost car to replace the Vauxhall Nova saloon? Let’s just see if we can’t make that happen…

[story by Chris Laverty]