I recently got to experience a handful of Japanese hero cars. The story on this is coming out soon, but the short version is that I drove an FC and FD Mazda RX-7, Rotary pickup, and a Eunos Cosmo. To say that I’ve got JDM on the brain would be an understatement. I’ve been browsing for that imaginary machine I’d like to add to my stable but in all honesty I have neither the room or the cash on hand for such a transaction. Still, there are some great deals out there… such as this Subaru Forester STI you see above.
Offered for sale on JDM-Expo, this is a version of the Forester which we never received stateside. Our most potent 2nd-generation Forester was the XT Sports Turbo, which saw 235 horsepower from its turbocharged flat-four engine.
In Japan, you could order up the STI version which took the Impreza WRX STI powertrain and made it its own. Now you have a Forester with 320 horsepower. This one also gets STI body trim bits, the appropriate gold wheels, and it also is full-on JDM inside so that means its RHD. I just wish it was a manual instead of an automatic.
Regardless, it’s for sale and the asking price is just $6,500. The odometer shows just under 67,000 kilometers, which means the car has traveled just over 41,000 miles.
How much is shipping from Japan and who wants to buy an old pickup truck so I can buy a weird Forester?
JDM Subaru Forester STI is tantalizingly affordable
By Jeff Glucker
Jul 20, 2017
By Jeff Glucker
Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff
Kamil Kaluski 
Ross Ballot
Legal to import in New Zealand, I gather, but not the US.
One of my neighbours has one. The same white.But manual. The same four wheel wheelspin on dry tarmac.
Probably more than 320hp the way turbo tuning has gone around here.
that’s the dream haha
There are several guys on BaT, among them Max Lumens (got contact info), who are regular JDM importers. From my impression, it’s pretty cheap to import cars by RoRo, especially since a lot of countries in the Russian hemisphere have tightened their used car import rules and demand has eased a little. It’s pretty prohibitive to import anything younger than the 30 year cutoff to Norway, but there are some Crowns, Debonairs and Presidentes that are tempting to get…also, random Camry pic after 90 minutes at cruise controlled 180 kph:
https://s1.postimg.org/xewrfr0wf/IMG_20170720_194425.jpg