On The Bend
Someone spotted this nostalgic Subaru Brap sitting on the side of a country road in Central Oregon, and it won us over instantly. It looked like a well-loved paddock beater that had lived a lifetime of backseat sex and fender benders, but had long since been retired. It was a car as depressingly silly as we often are, and it felt like looking into a magic mirror that told our future (and also transformed us into cars). Immediately we thought, ‘nah, this can’t be its final resting place... not if we have anything to do with it,’ so Pub Beer got to work sprucing this Subie Brap up, adding some paint, evicting the rat family under the hood, and making it look less like the car your weird older cousin would drive and more like the kind of car your weird older cousin would drive after getting their hands on some dumbbells and a cool fake ID.
Once the car was well made over and the engine was humming again, we called our friend Willis Kimbel to come see whether this lug of a Subaru was capable of returning to its former glory. We loaded it up with skateboards, beers, and emergency engine coolant, and took off from Bend in search of some good old fun.
Willis is one of the Pacific North West’s best skaters and the man to talk to if you’re looking for a bit of fun. You’ll find him out having a good time wherever he goes - whether it’s at Burnside skatepark or off the beaten track around Mount Hood. He’s always in to something, and that something quickly becomes the something that everyone else wants to be doing, whether it be drifting an overheated Brap - tempting the babe to roll but only ever tipping its tail - or frontside grinding every ten foot corner Oregon has to offer. Naturally, he was the perfect person to grab a friend and hand the keys of the car to.
‘It definitely isn’t making a sound you want to hear’ is an utterance so encapsulating that everyone on this trip ought to have it tattooed. At no point in the journey did the Sub Brap make a sound that wasn’t more of a squeal than a roar, but what’s a road trip from skatepark to skatepark without a bit of drama, a bit (a lot) of smoke, and a well-utilized roll cage? When the Brap got too hot and needed a cool down, so did we, and the non-drivers cracked into some beers.
Once she was cooled and collected, the non-drivers were only mid-can, so we threw the Brap into 4-wheel drive (or possibly just second gear) for some off roading.
There’s something so jubilant - atavistic, even - about pushing machinery to its absolute limit. Perhaps it is the recklessness - the thrill of risk so present and strong in skateboarders and pretend stunt drivers such as us. Or perhaps it is the machinery itself - the heat, the speed, the smell of fresh paint, or the mystique of smoke obscuring and enveloping the user. Whatever the reason, this little Subie gave us a whole lot of joy.
But like a marriage or a can of Pub Beer, all good things must end, and ultimately, the squeal became a screech and the speed turned to a limp.
‘We’re gonna need a Bobby pin, two elastic bands, a turtle shell, and a new Subaru.’
After making the rounds through Oregon’s skate parks and mountains, we had to drop the Brap and move on, leaving her to her fate: a likely tow, gallons of coolant, and the unqualified care of some unfortunate Pub Beer employee.
(Lessons learned and legal disclaimers to disclaim:
-don’t ever drink and drive.
-dont drift cars outside of designated areas.
-don’t try to use Pub Beer as car coolant no matter how crisp and refreshing it is.)
