Gavin Farmer: JAPANESE MAVERICK The Subaru ff-1
CLUB MEMBER Gavin Farmer
SUBARU FF-1: JAPANESE MAVERICK
The Subaru ff-1 was a rather remarkable motor car, especially so coming from the very conservative Japanese automobile industry. Back in the mid-60s when it was first shown at the Tokyo Motor Show almost all of the other Japanese car makers were building cars to the same recipe—front engine-rear drive with suspension, braking and steering systems that reflected the ultra-conservative thinking of English
and American makers. Innovation was an anathema. Our car, RCW-403, is the only Subaru ff-1 1100 registered on the road in Australia making it quite a rare, unique and perhaps valuable car.
I bought it from Geoff Ford, retired managing director of Holdfast Motors who were the importers. That was way back in 1983. It was in passable condition when I bought it although I did reline the front brakes almost immediately; the body had minor rust in the bottoms of the doors and the red paint work was faded and patchy—the bonnet, for example, clearly had three different shades of red on it from earlier repairs.
It stayed that way with me driving it at irregular intervals until we returned from England in late 2006. A small inheritance allowed me to start the restoration process, particularly of the body. By luck I found a retired painter who lived at Woodside who was prepared to rub it back to bare metal, fix the door rust and repaint it for me; I chose MG A red because he had gallons of it in stock rather than try and replicate the Tropical Red as original. The interior was gutted, re-carpeted and the seats reupholstered by a local expert and I re-assembled the car including replacing the engine and gearbox unit and doing all the myriad bits and pieces that seem to never end. Oh, and I had help from my two grandsons during the process!
Unfortunately I do not drive it very often these days mainly because I find other road users seem to have very little respect for me and my Subie. I worry that it will be damaged in a collision which would end its life—no body parts are available anywhere in the world and today’s “panel beaters” do not have the skill to properly repair it. Call it paranoia! Having said that, it is still a sweet car to drive with a willing engine that loves to rev and it has a nice bark from the exhaust.
Production of these Subarus began in the Gunma plant of Fuji Heavy Industries (it’s a northern suburb of Tokyo) in late 1965 with sales beginning in a small way by mid-1966. The car was called the Subaru 1000 and initially was available as a four-door sedan followed a few months later by a two-door sedan and a station wagon.
A year later the Subaru 1000 Sports was announced featuring a 1-litre boxer engine delivering 66bhp at 6600rpm! An unheard of power in 1967 from such a small engine.
Come March 1969 and the Subaru ff-1 1100 was announced with minor improvements over the 1000 but essentially the same car. A bigger bore in the engine took the capacity out to 1088cc from 977cc, power was up from 55bhp to 62bhp at 6000rpm; the Sports had 77bhp at 7000rpm.
The last of this model arrived in July 1970 for the ’71 model year, the Subaru 1300G. Again a bigger bore took the engine’s capacity out to 1267cc and power was 80bhp at 6400rpm with the Sports now delivering 93bhp at 7000rpm. The Sports was a genuine 100mph sedan, it was in so many ways the Japanese equivalent of the Morris Mini-Cooper S in its time.
It did not take long for the Subaru’s to establish their credentials in the rally world by consistently taking out class wins in the Japanese Alpine Rally.
I am in the process of publishing a book that details the life and times of this family of Subaru cars, cars that have been ignored by the snobbish classic car journalists for no other reason than they are Japanese and no Japanese car is worthy of “classic” status in their eyes.
So sad. Gavin Farmer.
Article ID: memcar01