As the close followers of Oppo goings-on may recall, @Eury recently bought and decided to sell a rusty but otherwise pretty-good 2002 WRX. I finally took my own advice, and bought it.
Friday afternoon, I worked a half-day, then went to the local u-haul and picked up a trailer. Came home, had lunch, packed up, and headed to a friend's place in Erie, PA for the night. The first leg of a long trip.
Saturday morning, I pick up a different friend in the area at 7am and set the GPS... 600 miles, estimated 9 hours. It's rainy, but otherwise not too bad of a drive - pretty much I90 for 500 miles, then a jaunt north from almost-Boston up to NH. It was snowing in Buffalo because it always is. There were some significant storms in central MA, but then it finally cleared up as we made it into town around 6pm.
Side note: what is it with people in the eastern half of NY and in MA that will pass you, then even though the next half mile of road in front of you is clear, merge over approximately six inches from your front bumper? This happened literally at least a hundred times on this trip. I'm pulling a heavy-ass trailer, I'm not going 10 over the speed limit.
Finally, Sunday morning. We check out of the hotel (which had very chunky milk with their breakfast offerings but was otherwise nice) and meet up with @Eury himself. The car is, frankly, better than he lets on. There's rust in the rockers and rear quarters (and a couple badish spots underneath) but it is completely stock, starts on the first turn, and the interior is near mint.
The drive back to Erie was overall better than the drive out, since it wasn't raining the whole time. The truck did well pulling 3000lb of car on 2200lb of trailer, got a good workout but never missed a beat or so much as budged the engine or transmission temperature needles past normal. Then about 50 miles east of Buffalo... it started snowing again. This would continue until about 50 miles south of Buffalo, where it switched back to rain/snow mix. Other than periods of lousy visibility and the snow/ice caking over the headlights (because it was dark by now, of course...) it wasn't too-too bad. Could have been a lot worse.
This morning I left my Erie friends at, once again... 7am. After driving 100 miles on Friday, 600 Saturday, and 600 Sunday, the 100 miles home flew by. The weather was very nearly clear. I was home around 9:30, unloaded the car, and returned the trailer. I then grabbed lunch... and headed into work for a half-day because the world is crazy. Final trip odometer-of-towing (reset when I picked it up) reading: 1498mi. Not too bad for about 100 gallons of gas and half a quart of oil.
It's home, filthy, but good. I'm working on a shortlist of what it needs. There's a spot or two of rust that needs addressed before they become structural issues, mainly. I'll be keeping an eye on the coolant/oil/etc. to determine what's going on with the suspected headgasket leak as well.
With the Oppo Heritage of this car, you all will be the first to hear as things develop/progress (it'll get a sticker once I've washed it beyond a quick clean-the-windshield-so-I-can-see-to-get-it-inside).