220.000 km in only 1 year.

Since I own this Subaru outback I keep myself asking, why? Why drove this man that many kilometers. He must almost lived in this car.

So to find that out, Rick, Viktor and myself drove all way down to Sunne. 1500 km from where I live. Sunne is a little village is Sweden where the outback was sold and had all her services. We met the owner of the car garage that sold this car and told me a lot about the history.

(Rick, me and Viktor)

Roger was on disablement pension deu to an injury at birth. But ever since he got his drivers license want to spent as much time behind the wheel. When he drove he has exactly the same capacity as everyone else who drives a car. It was like a therapy for him. So, to make all those kilometers he start helping caravan business to pickup and drop off caravans through whole Europe.

In 1996 he bought his first Subaru. All the other car brands last for two years, but Subaru was something else. Roger drove in 4 years 670.000 km with his outback without any problems. Until the outback needed a service. One of the car mechanic’s didn’t know that the outback had the gas pedal on the left side, because Roger couldn’t use is right leg. So instead of the clutch he hit the gas pedal and drove the outback through a wall.

There was standing an other outback in the showroom that was only used for test drives and had 12.000 km on it. This was Byr.

From the year 2000 until 2007 Roger drove 940.000 km with this car. With the same engine and transmission. Only at 680.000 km he changed a head gasket on one side. So the engine still has the original head gasket on the otherside. They changed bearings in the rear wheels and in the front differential.
But suspension and even exhaust are still all original!

In Japan they couldn’t understand that someone drove that much with one of there products. So Subaru of Japan invited Roger (the man in the wheelchair) in the Subaru factory. So they know about the story and this Subaru.

In 2007 Roger couldn’t drive anymore and gave the car back to the garage where he bought her. Roger Söderberg passed away October/18/2016.

After 6 years of standing outside in whatever weather Viktor walked into the garage and saw Byr standing there and he was wondering what that car was doing between the new ones. He asked the salesman and he told him the story about byr. He wants to buy it but, the sales man said no. For 2 months Viktor kept calling the sales man every week. Until the sales man gets sick of it and told him to get it for 1.000 euro. He bought is and want to drive Byr up to a million.

But at the 960.000 the transmission gets really bad and was totally destroyed. So Viktor had to change the transmission. Sadly but not bad after towing caravans all those distances.

After 980.000 km Viktor had a accident. He hit with 80 km/h a moose and the car was total loss. Whatever it takes him, byr had to reach the one million so he pushed out the roof and put new windows in.

10 years after Roger left Byr with 940.000 his car hit the one million km. But in 2018 the outback had too much rust and didn’t went through the inspection. Viktor didn’t had the time and money to fix here up. So he asked me or I had intrest. I told him before that I was thinking to drive my car from the Netherlands to Japan. But after I crashed my Legacy that plan was gone. So when Viktor asked me or I want to have this outback I didn’t have to think twice.

This is the car that me and my mate Rick going to drive to Japan. I hope they want to take Byr back so she can have her well deserved retirement there.

An pictures from Roger in 2006 when Byr passed the inspection with 807.810km without any problems.

The outback is called Byr because of the first 3 letters of the license plate.

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