One of the best automotive YouTube channels in existence, Mighty Car Mods (MCM), recently released a new series of videos documenting a new project car: a white Subaru BRZ. The story behind it was somewhat of a mystery, and its background is fascinating from a legal perspective.
It all began when Moog happened upon the Toyobaru for an amazingly low price. After checking it out and negotiating with the selling party, they came to an agreed price of just 9,500 AUD, or around $6,750 here in the States. Curiously, it’s super clean overall, so why does it seem like it’s the steal of the century?
Unsurprisingly, it’s been repaired after a wreck that involved making contact with a kangaroo at about 60 mph. That’s a concern, but all repair work appears to have been done to a high level of quality. As long as it can be aligned properly, is safe to drive, and won’t have any long-term issues, no big deal. Though, the price still seems a bit low for what it ought to be. The reason is that it’s a tough car to make road-legal again in the eyes of Australian legislation.
To back it up a tad, the car was originally owned by a fan of MCM. The dude even has a photo of him and Moog at an event a few years back on his Facebook, as Marty and Moog found out after doing a little detective work with the BRZ’s included paperwork.
It was under this cat’s ownership that the Subie was unfortunately totaled. Where it went after that is still sort of a mystery. Apparently, the person who bought it offered to sell it back to the original owner, but he declined because he’d moved onto something else. From there, the trail goes cold.
To curb automobile theft, Australian law essentially states that if a car is damaged, properly repaired, and then re-registered, it must have a paper trail proving that all parts and work came from legitimate sources. This certainly makes sense and is a solid way to not only cut down theft, but also ensure that repair work is done properly.
The kicker, however, is that the car must be inspected in its original Australian state, which in the BRZ‘s case is Queensland. Marty and Moog live in Sydney, which for those who haven’t gazed at Google Earth in a while, is in the southern part of New South Wales. Queensland’s city of Brisbane is a solid 9.5-hour drive from Sydney, so hauling the car up to any part of this massive state could be a bit of a hassle. That is, of course, if they can get all the proper paperwork proving that the car was properly repaired by a proper shop using proper parts.
This is why the price is so cheap and why it wasn’t snatched up before they saw it. This could all be a monumental pain in the ass. Though, even if Marty and Moog aren’t able to properly register it for the road, they could still utilize it as a track car that could be trailered to and from Australia’s many beautiful racing circuits. Really, it’s a win-win, though a little nicer of a win if they can also drive it on the street.
Be sure to check out the first video in the series to see how they happened upon and bought this big hunk of glorious rear-wheel-drive potential.
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