This is a 1983 Subaru GL Convertible and it’s in New Milford, Connecticut. This rare ragtop is listed on eBay with an unmet opening bid of $3,000 and three days left on the auction.

I know the philosophy of a lot of folks, “just because something is rare doesn’t make it valuable, or even desirable”. But, that just means that it isn’t valuable or desirable to them. These cars weren’t made by Subaru, they were made by a company called American Custom Coachworks at a time when the auto industry was just getting back on its feet again, convertible-wise. So, custom fabrication companies like ACC sunk their teeth into making convertibles. There are a few underside photos that show a little beefier setup than stock. The seller says that from what they can determine, “they made 187 of these” conversions. Here is where the rare doesn’t = desirable argument starts. I mean, the discussion..

This isn’t the most svelte or sexy shape, it looks like a Dodge Shadow convertible to me. But, being a huge Subaru fan and fan of oddball vehicles in general, of course I like this one; as if anyone had any doubt. The current owner says that this GL has “original paint, interior, drivetrain, top. the top is a power top that works great and is in excellent condition.” These cars are known as the Subaru Leone in most markets.

The interior looks great from what photos they show, mainly of the seats. The rear seat looks great, like they often do, but so do the front seats. There are no photos of the dash or any detail photos to know, but the seller says that the “interior is clean with no rips or tears or stains. Dashboard is unbroken or cracked.” This car is their daily driver and they “would have no problem driving it any distance.” There are no photos of this car that show it with the top down, but these aren’t bad looking conversions, in my opinion. At least with the top down.

But, there are issues. They say that the original owner “thought about repainting the car and lightly sanded the front passenger fender and door and the rear driver side fender. Not sure why. There is a small amount of rust on the leading edge of the drivers side rear wheel arch.” They also mention that you’ll need a gas tank, they found it to be bad and had an “aftermarket fuel cell and mounted it in the stock position and hooked it to the original fill pipe.” This is Subaru’s 1.8L EA-81 boxer engine with about 75 hp. This car thankfully has a manual transmission which will help put every one of those 75 ponies to the front wheels much more efficiently than an automatic transmission would. I know that Subaru fans are few and far between here, but what do you think about this GL convertible? Have you ever seen one of these before?