"it'll be easy to find one of these from the early 2000's with low miles in good condition for a decent price...

Should've done an EJ25T and STi transmission swap. Make it a boyracing hellhound in a WRX wrapper.

Yeah that would be nice but it wasn't in the budget. I actually looked at totaled STIs that could be stripped for parts and people wanted more than what I originally paid for the car for wrecks that had been wrapped around trees. Maybe someday.

It's much easier to just buy an STI and put WRX badges on it

Or put impreza badges, remove all wings, and put an impreza hood with a hidden front mount intercooler

I got myself a completely stock 2001 WRX with 85K miles for £3000. Quite easy to find a decent one in the UK

got a decent condition GD STI for 21.5k with 50k miles.

where i live that basically means i stole the car.

Dealing with
>RUST like a mother fucker even 08+
>understeer on any trim from the factory
> ULH that needs to be replaced or you'll end up with headgasket issues, ringland failure, and piston #4 exploding
>Ricer tax

If you want a subbie you really need to want one otherwise you're putting up with tons of bullshit. They're not worth the asking price considering how unreliable they are and how abused they are. But it does keep the boyracers away from proper fast cars like s2k and 350z

>s2k
>350z
The only people I see driving those cars are even worse than subaru drivers

Why are these so popular? It's absurd. They are mediocre sort-of sports cars anyways.

For some reason all the vaping retards decided all at once that they were the only car they wanted

Except those are proper sports cars and likely to be in much better condition than the same year WRX, not to mention reasonably priced.