Tuesday’s child, as the old nursery rhyme goes, is
full of grace. That sounds about right, doesn’t it? The
Ruby Red Impreza we’ve found lurking in the shadows in
downtown Bangkok couldn’t be a Monday’s child – it’s
more striking than it is ‘fair of face’. Scanning through
the rest of the age-old rhyme, it’s not full of woe, and we
wouldn’t say it has far to go... no, full of grace describes
this lipstick-hued Scoob pretty smartly.
It’s not a word often applied to modifi ed cars, is it?
Not with a straight face, anyway. Yes, there used to be
lots of cars in the scene back in the ’90s proudly wearing
stickers that said ‘Pace, grace, and serious bass’, but
it always felt that the word had been chosen simply
because it rhymed rather than because it actually meant
anything. But the logic is starting to tumble into placewith Jitpaphat Phutsorn’s widebody creation. Imprezas,
traditionally speaking, are robust and hard-as-nails tools
built for bouncing through gravelly forests and across
deserts, none of which is a particularly graceful pursuit.
But this? As it airs out and lets its skirts settle around it
like a nineteenth century lady-of-the-manor beside her
perfectly manicured tennis lawn, it really does exude an
air of gracefulness. A perfectly crafted Ruby Tuesday.
This isn’t to say that Jitpaphat’s creation is entirely
without edge, however. What he’s achieved here is
to take a well-known and established silhouette and
effectively turn it into a sort of life-size Hot Wheels racer,
all caricaturistic proportions and deliberately jarring
juxtapositions. The Impreza hatchback now wears an
incredibly wide bodykit from AZC, its seam-bustingly vast
arches just about containing the massive wheels beneath.
They’re OZ Futura splits, as you may well have noticed,
and measure an impressive 9.75x18-inches at the front,
and an inch wider at the rear. Couple this with a bespoke
air-ride setup from Airsus and you’ve got a bootylicious
miscreant that stances itself like an absolute hero.WHAT’S THE HATCHAll of this is a brilliant counterpoint to the very ethos
of the Impreza hatchback, as this was a car that really
annoyed a lot of people when it fi rst arrived. The cult
of the Impreza had reached a full-on, frothy fever pitch
in the late 1990s and through into the new millennium,
with the Subaru vs. Mitsubishi gravel wars raging with
ever-increasing ferocity. Every fresh variant of the Impreza
seemed to ramp the insanity up a level – cleverer tech,
more versatile and adjustable chassis, spiraling power
levels, seemingly unfathomable specifi c-output fi gures,
it was nuts. If it was painted World Rally Blue and had
gold Speedlines, you knew it was a thing you shouldn’tOWNER BOXOUT:
Name: Jitpaphat Phutsorn
Hometown: Bangkok, Thailand
Occupation: PhotographerHOT RIDE