These days, Subaru diehards don’t have as much to be excited about as they used to. The STI is dead, the Legacy Spec.B hasn’t been seen since the Great Recession, and the cladding on the new WRX is, shall we say, contentious. As far as road cars go, the Japanese brand seems more set on the Trader Joe’s audience, which admittedly, makes a lot of sense. However, when it comes to special projects, it’s a different story. Not only is Project Midnight what happens when you give an economy car the same drugs that were injected into Steve Rogers to make him Captain America, it’s aiming to break records. Lots and lots of records.
This whole project started with the Airslayer Gymkhana WRX, which wasn’t even intended to be a track car. It was intended to go sideways and off of jumps and sideways off of jumps, putting on a huge spectacle with Travis Pastrana behind the wheel. However, break records it did, at the Mt. Washington Hillclimb, and then on Virginia International Raceway’s Grand East Course configuration. Clearly, that gave someone at Subaru Motorsports USA an idea: What if they went bowling with the bumpers down?
Enter Project Midnight, an all-carbon, all-winged, all-powerful, all-rad as all-hell balls-to-the-wall take on the current WRX. Yes, there is a VB WRX in there somewhere, but it’s about as far from the one sold in showrooms as you are geographically to Pluto. Let’s start with the engine, a two-liter flat-four fed Burnout 3: Takedown levels of boost to the tune of 670 horsepower and 680 lb.-ft. of torque. Not only is it an evolved version of the engine in Scott Speed’s rallycross car, it revs to 9,500 rpm.
Granted, in the context of modern performance cars, 670 horsepower doesn’t sound massively impressive when you can finance a Hyundai that makes 641 horsepower and comes with a warranty. However, Project Midnight only weighs 2,469 pounds, meaning each horsepower only has 3.68 pounds to cart around. That’s in McLaren P1 territory, so even with the drag from the aero package, this wing with a car attached ought to properly move on the straights.
Ah yes, the aero package. Rallycross cars have big wings, but the one on Project Midnight is bigger. It may actually be legally classified as a ZIP code. Add in canards the size of snowboards, a front splitter large enough to use as a stage, Tsukuba-ready fender flares, and a proper diffuser, and you just get the sense that this weaponized tuner special ought to write its name in a few history books.
While Project Midnight will soon be going fast all over the place, it’s making its performance debut at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, running from July 11 to 14. Not a bad place for a public shakedown, right? Let’s see where this badass WRX goes next, because something this mental isn’t just a garage piece.
(Photo credits: Subaru)
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