The driver with Scooby-Blue (Scooby-Two is in the garage)

A History of Scoobies

Erps-Kwerps, Belgium - January 2022 - by Jeffrey

Many of the trips I've written about here are road trips and a few people have asked me about my slightly unusual car. It is a 2017 Subaru Levorg nicknamed Scooby-Blue for reasons I'll explain in a moment.

Subarus are rare and special cars in Europe. We who own them feel we are a part of an exclusive club. We often wave or flash our headlights at fellow Subaru drivers we pass on the road. Sometimes we are so overwhelmed with emotion that we pull over to the side of the road and hug each other. Admittedly, that doesn't happen often, especially during the pandemic. Levorgs are particularly rare. I can go months without seeing one on the road. They are not available at all in North America.

Fast Driving in Switzerland

One of the few countries were you see more than an occasional Subaru is Switzerland, which is not surprising. I expect the pragmatic Swiss appreciate the car's permanent four wheel drive on Alpine roads as well as its durability. I get that. One of my greatest driving pleasures is blasting up and down the Alps (ideally without any passengers in the car as they are apt to scream in terror when I do this). Subaru's four wheel drive clings to the twisty, mountainous roads like a gecko on cocaine.

I bought my first Subaru when I moved to Belgium in 1999. It was a Legacy estate (station wagon to Americans) and great fun. It had loads of room for family road trips that, for a while, included babies requiring nappies (diapers to Americans), special seats, pushchairs (strollers to Americans) and all kinds of infant-gear. It was also had plenty of space for cases of wine bought on trips to France and Italy. That first Subaru was also capable of comfortably cruising at over 200kmph (about 124 mph) on Germany's Autobahn (much of which has no speed limit) and racing up and down Alpine roads in terrifying ways.

Scooby-Doo

Like a lot of Subaru owners, I nicked-named mine, "Scooby-Doo" after the famous cartoon character; not because the Subaru is any anyway like the cartoon dog, but because the name of the car and the name of the dog sound similar.

Scooby-Doo survived 18 years of abusive ownership, rambunctious children with equally rambunctious friends, several minor accidents (it was re-ended three times by tailgaters) and a quarter of a million kilometres until I finally sold it. Long before then, I was hooked on Subarus. This proved problematic when I bought Subaru number two, a second hand Impreza. We clearly couldn't call it "Scooby-Doo" as we already had a car by that name. So, we called it "Scooby-Two".

The navigator and Scooby-Blue

The Levorg

Then, in 2018, I bought the Levorg. It became my third Subaru, and although Scooby-Doo had been sold by then, the car had a special place in my heart and I could not call another car by the same name.

Fortunately, the Levorg's colour made it easy to nick-name: "Scooby-Blue".

Scooby-Blue has proven a great car for road trips and has already taken me to fifteen countries. It is not as much fun to drive as my previous Subarus, but it is a great touring car: it is comfortable on long drives, it has a good sound system, it is full of safety gear and it can cruise comfortable at 200kmph plus on the Autobahn. And, thanks to its rarity, it is easy to find in car parks.

It's also a Subaru and that is important to me.

But...

But, I worry. What will I call my next Subaru?

 

Easy to find in a car park - especially if it is the only car in a car park.