Submission: #SNWBARU, A Custom 2003 Subaru Baja

Odometer fan Rizzo S. of southeast Michigan put together this beautiful custom truck with the help of his wife and some friends. Rizzo, a long-time Ford Crown Victoria driver, was in the market for a new vehicle, and ended up with a Baja after some persuasion from his wife, who drives a Subaru Forester.

“I bought the truck with 228K on it and immediately fell in love,” Rizzo said, “I missed a 5 speed manual real bad. I had been looking for two months and had given up. My wife found an ad with no pictures from a local dealer and convinced me to go look…To our great surprise it was in fantastic shape, so much so that I asked the salesman if he had brought the right one out. I paid $2,300 cash and left that day.”

Despite being enamored with his new ride, Rizzo felt it still needed a little something before it truly encapsulated his personality, so he brainstormed. Drawing inspiration from his love of paintball and his favorite snow-camo jacket, he formulated a plan. Executing it, however, was a different story, one that required lots of help from his wife, and friends Tom and Ben.

“Painting the truck was an entire household event. My wife was out there razor blading off pinstripes, scuffing panels. Tom (a painter friend) and I were both stripping parts off of the truck down to the bare steel panels. Everything came off. Everything. The truck sat in pieces, all over the garage for one week letting the clear cure before we put it back together.”

When it came time to actually painting the beast, Rizzo says that while the white base coat was simple, the stenciled details took hours upon hours.

“All of the stencils were hand made. My good friend Ben hand drew and cut stencils from eight sheets of poster board for me to pick from, then on D-Day, I had cut one more. We wrung our hands over the stencils for a week straight; those could ruin the whole concept if done wrong. One brushstroke too many, right?”

When all was said and done, Rizzo had exactly what he’d wanted: a truck that turned heads. He now gets questions about the project all the time, but is always sure to give props where due.

“My wife deserves 200 percent of the credit,” he says. “She ‘tricked’ me into buying a Subaru in the first place, she was out there every day during the garage build and through some blood, sweat and tears she was there for the whole paint job.”

With his labor of love complete, Rizzo now gets to enjoy his prized possession, and for his money there’s nothing more fun than having an all-wheel-drive vehicle in the colder months.

“I pray for snow every winter,” he says, “I get excited when the forecast is bananas.”

We’d love to hear about your auto project too! If you’re interested in submitting your vehicle to Odometer, get in touch with us via Facebook!