Ex-McRae Subaru Impreza WRC Prototype for sale
Yes, it's got an MOT. Yes, you can drive it to the pub. No, it won't be cheap
The World Rally Championship underwent one of its greatest regulation changes for the 1997 season. After a decade of Group A regulations, where teams were forced to compete in rally machines closely linked to their road-going counterparts, the rules were relaxed in a bid to entice more manufacturers into the fold. With greater freedom over engine design, geometry and aerodynamics, the rallying world was on the brink of a golden era.
The word ‘iconic’ is often overused, but it’s hard to argue against the blood-red Mitsubishi Evos, Peugeot 206s and Ford Focuses being anything else. Heck, even the Castrol-liveried Hyundai Accents are achingly cool, in spite of lacklustre results and rubbish underpinnings. But if ever there were a car to summarise such a truly magic period in WRC history, it would be Prodrive’s marvellous string of Subaru Imprezas.
Fresh off the back of a championship win with Colin McRae in 1995, plus a runner-up spot a year later, Prodrive would go big on the new WR regulations. Based on the two-door body of the JDM-spec Impreza WRX STI Type R, Prodrive hacked the original car to bits to optimise it for every surface imaginable - in a way that wasn’t possible under the old Group A regs. The MacPherson strut suspension was relocated to help accommodate new Bilstein dampers, while the track width was increased for better agility. Coincidentally, this resulted in the GC8 Impreza’s muscular looks, with the regs mandating that extended arches must be seamlessly merged with the factory bodywork.
Compared to the championship-winning Group A car, the 1997 machine was leagues ahead from a technical standpoint. However, this being the first year of the regulations, it’s a real mishmash of old and new. The ’97 car still featured a manual gearbox and the electro-hydraulic differentials, which, while advanced at the time, would be replaced with far more sophisticated systems in the coming seasons. The engine, meanwhile, was the same 2.0-litre four-cylinder boxer as the road car, only with modified cylinder ports, camshafts and combustion chambers. Outputs range from 300hp to 310hp, depending on who you talk to, which is plenty for the twist and turns of Monte Carlo and the muddy tracks of the Safari Rally.
Subaru was arguably the class of the field in 1997, taking eight wins on the way to that year’s Constructor’s Championship. In true Colin McRae fashion, he’d get within a whisker of clinching the Driver’s Championship, losing out to Mitsubishi’s Tommi Makinen by a single point. Subaru suffered the odd mechanical gremlin that curtailed McRae’s campaign, as did a few shunts along the way. Still, it’s a landmark car for Subaru and Prodrive and spawned one of the most iconic (there it is again) motorsport liveries of all time.
This particular car, chassis number 001, is a little bit different. With such a significant regulation change on the horizon, Prodrive wanted to get a leg up on the opposition by carrying out a rigorous testing plan with its WR car a year earlier. Heading over to Fiskens’ website (it’s missing a description on our listing) reveals the car was a prototype run through 1996 to get the team – and McRae – up to speed in time for the major rule change. Though it was never officially entered into a WRC event, it did win the 1998 Boucles de Spa Alphonse Delettre rally in Belgium and, according to the listing, was “extensively campaigned” in Britain and Ireland until 2007.
Since then, it’s undergone a major restoration at Prodrive, retaining the original shell and making use of official Subaru Rally Team parts. Notice that it’s running UK plates, too? A quick search online reveals that it’s got an MOT, meaning that once it's taxed you could take this down to the pub without garnering heat from the fuzz. Can’t do that in an old Formula 1 car, can you?
Speaking of Formula 1 cars, it's probably best to expect it a ballpark figure somewhere in the region of a semi-successful F1 machine. You’ll find out just how much it costs if you give Fiskens a call with the intent of buying the thing, with recent sales of McRae-driven Subaru WRC cars suggesting somewhere in the region of half a million quid. Serious money for a car that never competed in that magic 1997 season, but there’s little doubt that Subaru’s future successes wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for a Colin McRae and this plucky workhorse.
Stratos, Integrale, Quattro, Escorts … the list is full of classics.
I mean the people who grew up lusting after Ford Escorts are all old farts now aren't they?
Where's the new crowd?
The old Escorts are great things, but relatively simple and only costs what £50k to replicate and easy to run.
Doing a decent replica of a WRC, and I’m talking mods to the shell, equivalent drivetrain parts etc must run to £200k or thereabouts?
Of course you could do it much cheaper and just bang some arches on a Type R shell, there is a guy who has made a pretty decent go of it with his P1 but it isn’t the equal of a WRC cool as it is.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202301173...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Sorry just spotted the feature car is 001 and this is 002.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff