This Abandoned Subaru Showroom Is Full Of Rare Zero-Milers
Is there anything in cardom that’s more fascinating than an abandoned showroom of interesting, rare and unusual cars? The question has come back to our lips after being sent this astonishing series of photos taken of a disused Subaru dealership.
This Fuji Heavy Industries showroom on the Mediterranean island of Malta has been captured on camera by carsaddiction.com. The story goes that it was outmoded by a newer showroom on another part of the island, with the owners eventually just locking the doors and walking away.
What’s left inside is an ultra-rare collection of right-hand drive Subarus, most of which will have next-to-zero miles on their clocks. Check out the base-spec Impreza estate with massively ‘80s wheel trims over steel wheels, with unpainted bumpers and door handles. There’s a matching saloon version, too.
But the real jewel in the crown is an XT 4WD Turbo, a little-known wedge-shaped two-door coupe launched in 1985. The 4.5-metre car was front-engined with part-time four-wheel drive and a 1.8-litre turbocharged boxer four-cylinder engine, good for 136 horsepower in European spec.
Here’s the really interesting bit. At the time of writing, website howmanyleft.co.uk says that there are just one each of the manual and automatic XTs left in this country. That makes this Maltese find something that could be incredibly valuable to a collector.
We hope that the time-warp cars in this old showroom find a happy ending, and even that a few of them might make their way to the UK. We’d love to see them on the road. I call shotgun on the Impreza wagon.
Comments
A twin to the “Jewel” in Germany:
https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id=256913433&damageUnrepaired=NO_DAMAGE_UNREPAIRED&isSearchRequest=true&makeModelVariant1.makeId=23500&makeModelVariant1.modelId=16&pageNumber=1&scopeId=C&fnai=next&searchId=c28ad862-7b81-f90c-7ebb-82bc6cf5c18c
Dibbs on the motorcycle the background.
#twowheelsonelove
The shifters on the XTs are hilarious, so 80s…
So it doesn’t share the Leone’s missile button 4WD
what about the little truck/pickup?
Propably a bbrat
joss
Thanks CT for sharing the original CarsAddiction.com article. Might do a video of the this Time Capsule Subaru dealership if I see the demand for it. If you do want to see a walkaround let me know in the comment section at - https://www.carsaddiction.com/articles/2018/02/abandoned-subaru-ghost-car-showroom
Want!
story goes that the subaru dealership was owned by brothers they had a kind of disagreement and split up, one kept the showroom with all the cars inside which is the one in the pictures the other kept the brand and rights to sell the cars in malta and opened a new showroom eventually this one closed down in the early 90’s since he ended up without business. Problem with those cars is that now it would be very expensive to pay registration tax on them thus they will never be sold locally. Their only hope is that after 30yrs from their manufacture date they might be registered as classic cars with an 8eur yearly road licence as per malta’s registration classis scheme but i doubt that anyone would be interested to pay the registration fee.
XT Turbo… My dad had one of these. It was only ONE for a whole our country
nobody should touch them, just make sure they dont start rusting.