The world is flat.

Long-winded.

Back in 2024 I pitched my mate Austin a road trip to Sydney to see some Subaru action.

Timing wasn't fantastic. I was wrapping up another semester of study whilst Aus almost graduating and well in the thick of must do's. 

I made sure to turn in assessments on time or early but still had a logbook for a programming subject I had to forge a backlog for. Aus was on his MacBook designing during any down time we had. A flog of a journalism student and a talented graphic designer actually make a pretty good combo, but it was still a mission.

Only a few months before, I had been researching the Formula One car Subaru commissioned at the end of the eighties. Somehow the flat 12 powered Subaru 1235 had made it's way to Australia and now resided in the possession of a farmer from Griffith NSW. I was on the HPA forum one night when I came across an arrangement of words that would factor big into my pitch to Aus...

Hi all, as I mentioned I am a serious Subaru nut case [and] have a collection of Subaru toys but all are left field, not your normal Subaru stuff.

Have 10 Subaru SVX, one that I race on the track as a track day car, it has a standard engine for now but recently got a PPG sequential 6 speed transmission, one I drive in the desert in Australia (has 700,000 k's on it with a few engine changes). And a bunch road registered ones.

A Subaru open wheel from Japan, FJ1600 has a EA71 engine with twin carbs, we are building up a new EA81 for this car with CNC heads aiming for 200 hp which is double what it has now. Will have a Link ECU.

The jewel in the toy collection is all the spare parts including a couple engine from the Subaru F1 team when they quit F1 after having failed to even qualify for a single race. These engines are a flat 12 cylinder 3.5 litre, 14,000 rpm screamers developing 600 hp. Do a google they are known as Subaru 1235's

I have joined the course so I can learn how to program ECU's. I am just finishing the building of my own engine dyno on which I plan to do a bunch of R&D into what makes power and what doesn't. Also have a development program to make a compression ignition engine. Not interested in turbo, am old school strictly NA.

60 years old this year but have a massive desire to learn till the day I die.

Keep well all and enjoy life, its fun

Words to live by. I went down a rabbit hole before finding an email address for DesertRunner AKA Anthony Parle. I emailed him asking for the opportunity to sight the 1235. Two young ladz with eighties NA Subaru's traveling to Sydney (for first time in my case) to attend Australia's biggest Subaru event. He agreed.

 

  

After a long drive, a pit stop at a bakery and a quick stretch of the legz at a random skatepark we met Tony in Griffith. We followed him to the shed housing Subaru's one and only crack at F1.

 

You might notice that I didn't really take any brilliant photos but you see a funny thing happened. Besides being fairly overwhelmed I think Austin and I both realised later, the awe wasn't so much towards the insane race car but instead Tony. You don't meet blokes like Tony much in life and when you do, it changes how you view people. 

 

We were just some south oz muppets with a common interest talking to the Gherkin king. Tony Parle is the cucumber supplier for Maccas in Australia. Those pickles in a cheeky cheese burger, yeah they come from DesertRunner.

 

In other words a ridiculously switched on & busy person who still gave up a lot of time to talk to us about cars sporting the Pleiades cluster. And while we asked him alot of questions there's only one I really want to talk about. "How'd you end up into Subaru's?"

 

"Ah yeah, that's a good question"

 

He put one leg up on the wheel of the 1235, gripped his chin and spoke.

"The rally championship at the time was the Southern Cross, it was called. And they cleaned up."

"They were front wheel drive and had a little um, four cylinder 1400 engine - twin carb. That was in a Subaru called the GSR."

 

"I bought one of those and I had it for years."

 

"After the GSR gone to heaven I was 22 and pulled a DL outa yard to play with."

 

"We shaved the heads. Too far." He said with a massive grin and eye contact.

 

"I couldn't keep headgaskets innit, but it used to fly and so I took it to this bloke who had a rotary. He used to hot up vee-eights for blokes to street race around here (Griffith)."

 

"I couldn't get it to run right so I took it to him for a tune up, and I come in to pick it up and he goes; You know the rotary is the fastest car I've ever driven in my life... looks over at the DL and says that's the second."

 

Aus and I laughed.

 

"Yeah that about done it, along with the heads shaved to the shit."

 

In Japan they call people who live and breathe Subaru a Subarist. Standing around that car in that moment that's what the three of us were. I'd write more about the trip but there's a video covering the rest. So if you've made it this far and want more, have at it... Chur.