It felt like an eternity as I listened to Amber Logston bicker with her fiance about the final cost of her widebody '04 Subaru WRX STi. While this went on for a few minutes, I pretend I'm Leigh from BRS and started stalking girls on MySpace. Amber stopped talking to her chatty man and got back on the line. They settled on roughly $65,000. That's how much it cost this Texas graphic designer to build a widebody STi.
Wait, wait. $65,000 for an STi with a fatter ass? She didn't get played. There's a bit of history behind this Subaru and why it costs more than the combined salary of the Super Street staff. Amber bought the car used as stock, with about 35,000 miles on the odometer. Almost immediately, she began blowing money on go-fast parts: wheels, tires, suspension, aero parts and anything else that could make the car different than every other STi on the road.
Individuality didn't last very long though: a casual cruise with some friends ended up causing thousands in damage. While driving around town, a delaminated tire from an 18-wheeler was abruptly kicked up by a van in front of Amber's STi. Now picture the massive tire moving at the Sube in slow-motion. At the last second, Amber managed to swerve. Directly. Into. The. Tire. The giant rubber (heh, heh) smacked most of the front-end, wrecking the Subaru up real good. Imagine carbon fiber and fiberglass flying everywhere, while Amber cried like a little girl. She was already on her third set of wheels and the car was down and out.
After reality set in and the tears subsided, Amber decided to bring the Sube back to life. That's around the time that all hell broke loose. The blow from the giant tire must have jarred something deep inside this Texas native. Having a custom car was always part of Amber's love for wheels. "Nothing is good enough stock. I cannot have a car that looks like everyone else's. I have to drive something that people will think is either weird or cool. Then they get to know me and are like, 'it's totally like your car'," she explained.
The first kit (or what was left of it) was replaced with mostly Seibon and APR stuff like a carbon fiber hood, carbon fiber trunk, rear diffuser, front diffuser, GT mirrors, a carbon fiber roof wing, molded fender flares and a sexy APR, SSGT widebody kit. Nearly five months later, the car was reborn, complete with House of Kolor Kandy Pink Chrome JLine wheels shod in Hankooks, a new sweet stance (courtesy of K-Sport coilovers) and enough style to forgo the jokes about this being a girl's car. Girlie car or not, though, this thing looks effing wicked. If you didn't know the car was widebodied, you'd probably never find out because it almost looks stock. The only real hints are the vents on the flared front fenders. Job well done to the secret body guy- as Amber is hesitant to give up the name (smart girl). However, Amber is quick to credit the pearlescent paint finish - a two-tone sand metallic (with black top) made all sparkly with a red crystal ice pearl - to Pinnacle Auto in Houston.
Along with the exterior, she began ripping apart the stuff beneath the hood to make the WRX faster. Power Enterprise, Walbro and APEX'i all account for fuel needs, while TurboXS and Aqua Racing handle breathing and sucking. Amber estimates that the car is just a few ponies shy of 300 at the wheels. That's not a bad number for a car with hp-sapping AWD. She also wisely upgraded the stock clutch to a triple-plate carbon dealio from ATS.
But let's get serious: this is a girl's car, after all. The inside has to be perfect, right? If the photos aren't reason enough to believe, check out Amber's interior list: custom suede headliner, Alcantara door panels and custom black interior carpet. And, of course, all the obligatory gauges are accounted for, like Defi, GReddy and the sexy Racepak carbon gauge cluster. In-car audio is covered, thanks to a long list of components from Digital Designs. The only ICE element that isn't from DD is the head unit, the touch screen is an Alpine IVD-310 DVD.
And we thought the WRX STi was pretty damn good from the factory. Amber feels differently and thinks every car could use a little bit of work: "If I was to buy even a Bugatti, I would probably find something to do to it. I can't leave something normal. Everything has to be different." Near the end of the conversation Amber adds, "I'm not a ditz, so don't make me sound like one, okay?" What kind of jerk does she think I am? I don't think she's a dumb; I think all women are dumb (Thank you, Tyrone, for setting your people back a thousand years -JN).
(Don't you mean gender relations? -BG)
(What do you know, Bernice? You're just a dumb girl. -JN)