Garage Queen Subaru Impreza Turned Into A Lifted Offroad Trail Killer

We noticed Wyatt’s 1995 Subaru Impreza LX on Instagram. We liked that his build is something that most people could do in their own garage without spending a fortune on parts, or buying an expensive SUV. We think his build thread will be helpful in getting people out on the trails without going into debt financing a brand new rig.

How long have you owned your Impreza and is this your first Subaru?

“I bought this car in november of 2018. It was completely stock and previously owned by an elderly lady that kept up on maintenance regularly. This is my first Subaru and I’m super happy with how well it runs for how old it is.”

Trail Adventures In The Lifted Impreza:

Why did you to decide to lift the Impreza?

I decided to lift my subaru because I see subarus everywhere and they’re either stock or if they have any upgrades they lower them and build them for speed, but I have really never seen a lifted one until I started my instagram and I found this great community of people off-roading Subarus.

But the main inspiration for me lifting mine was this small youtube channel called bendagas garage, they have the exact same year, style, and color of my subaru and they lifted it and I just loved the way it looked.

The lift that is currently on the car is stock 2005 forester struts. I swapped the trailing arms with forester ones because I heard they can help with caster but they were the same size unfortunately, but I plan to buy a 2 inch lift and 3 inch trailing arm spacer kit from Anderson Design and Fabrications soon.

2005 Forester Struts
Forester Trailing Arms (used, but not needed)

If you don't mind sharing a few details about your lift kit, what parts are you using?

Can you tell us about your wheels and tires, as well as any spacers or adapters you used?

“I have 1 inch wheel spacers from amazon that change the lug pattern from 5×100 to 5×4.5 to fit the 15×7 stock 2008 jeep wheels. The tires I am running are Bfgoodrich KM3 M/T and the size is 215/75R15.”

What's some of the craziest things you've done in the Battle Wagon so far?

So far I haven’t done very much crazy stuff but I was on a trail called Hamlin Gulch in Idaho Springs Colorado and about 1 mile into the trail was a super off camber rocky section, 1 side was a hill going up and the other side was a steep rocky hill that ended about 300 feet down, I slowly made my way over it sticking as close as I could to the safer side and luckily everything went smooth.

Future plans for the Impreza Battle Wagon

In the future I plan to lift it more, thinking around 2 inches will be enough but i know after that I’ll want more after I lift it more. After i purchase another car that i can daily instead of the battle wagon i plan to rebuild the engine and swap the transmission with a manual 5 speed instead of my automatic 4 speed.

Hopefully I can find lower gearing differentials and put torque lockers in the front and rear. I also plan to get custom front and rear bumpers with a 3000 lb winch on the front.