MINE CRAFT

SUBARU DROPS OFF A CRUSHER CAR AT OUR OFFICE, SO WE BREAK OUT OUR SAWZALL AND TAKE A TRIP BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH.

- Austin Irwin

Imagine you're driving a Toyota 4Runner. A huge one. Or a Jeep. Yeah, a lifted Jeep. With big tires, antennas for comms, and a Dometic cooler full of Klondike bars. Now imagine thumping along your favorite off-road trail, mixing it up in beautiful brown mud while giant tread blocks stomp over downed tree limbs and reveling in the belief that you won't meet traffic along your secret path. Then, you see it. No, you hear it first. It sounds like a swarm of bees fighting in a civil war. Your heart sinks as the noise moves closer. You can't believe what you're about to ask yourself. Is that... a Subaru?

But on our endeavor, traffic would be of no concern. Just north of Pittsburgh is an off-road passage that leads 250 feet underground into a limestone mine that last had a pickaxe swung at it in 1914. The 0.8-mile loop is part of an off-road tour at Mines & Meadows ATV/RV Resort, which usually allows only side-by-sides and other all-terrain vehicles to pass through the mine's 84-inch-wide entrance. However, the resort made an exception for our project Subie.

In the past year, we've made some dramatic changes to one of our favorite sports cars, the four-time 10Best-winning Subaru BRZ. Last year Subaru's public-relations department called and asked what we might want to do with a BRZ sentenced to the crusher after living a life of press-car abuse. We don't know what rev-limiter agony this BRZ experienced, but we thought we'd give it a nice final outing before it met a hydraulic press. Shortly after the automaker's offer, Subaru of New England posted an April Fools' joke on Instagram: a rendering of a BRZ Wilderness. That gag became our goal.