Here I am, standing in a garage doorway. Some 50 yards away, a muscle-shouldered Subaru Impreza sits on the tarmac preparing to launch, its engine at full load, pop-pop-popping off the rev limiter like a lawnmower savaging a field of balloons. The rally driver lets it loose, and the car rages toward the horizon, snarling from its titanium exhaust, a streak of blue against leaden Bedfordshire skies.
Accelerating away, the telltale crack between shifts fades to a distant pop. The driver stabs the brake pedal, and with a boom of anti-lag detonation, the $500,000+ Subaru rotates through an off-camber bend and hastens the absolute fuck out of sight. If I close my eyes and picture a Corsican switchback—instead of Millbrook Proving Ground in the East of England—I’d swear I’m on a tarmac rally stage. The only sound missing from the Prodrive P25’s rally-car cacophony is the whine of straight-cut gears as it spirits away; its gears are of the quieter helical type, a nod that a rally car for the street should probably have a refinement or two.
The P25 is no standard restomod. Yes, it’s a two-door Subaru WRX that’s been massively modified by Prodrive—which ran the Subaru World Rally team from 1990 to 2008—with a modern drivetrain, suspension, and electronics. More than the sum of those parts, it’s a tribute car celebrating 25 years since Subaru’s first manufacturer’s championship, under new WRC rules, with the Impreza WRC97. You could call the P25 A two-part proposition: a world-class tuning job and a micro-exotic built in a limited number for those who know precisely why such a car should exist.
The driver—eight-time Rally America champion David Higgins—appears rounding the final corner. The P25 prototype he’s driving looks like something from the Singer or RUF playbook: A tricked-out version of a car we’ve eyeballed a thousand times, and yet are seeing something different in it now. It’s wider, lower, and more taut at every angle than the original WRX, with current-day wheels and tires, and a copious wing at the rear. It’s a reminder the original Impreza coupe was a striking design that keeps getting better with age.
Those familiar with the late 1990s in Subaru rally history are not hallucinating. Prodrive’s P25 is a take on the 22B, a two-door, widebody Impreza Subaru built in 1997 to celebrate its 40th anniversary and three consecutive manufacturers’ championships. Subaru produced 420-odd 22Bs, the lion’s share of them going to Japan and the rest to the UK and Australia. With a 2.2-liter boxer four, around 300 unofficial horsepower, and under 3,000 pounds, the 22B is a hidden gem of a classic car, a cool-as-shit Japanese stradale with a rally-adjacent pedigree.
Inspired by the 22B, and with an eye toward that car’s recent spike in valuation, Prodrive set out to update the concept. Starting with the original two-door WRX monocoque, the Prodrive team stripped and seam-welded it for rigidity, then they fabricated new, carbon-fiber body panels, with the front fenders molded directly from the WRC97 rally car. Only the doors are in metal for impact safety. At just 2,500 pounds, the P25’s power-to-weight rivals more powerful exotics, and Prodrive reps say they’ve gotten the P25 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds during testing.
Achieving that number is a function of modern-day tech. The engine is a U.S.-spec, EJ25-based 2.5-liter four-cylinder boxer, built by Prodrive with a Garrett turbo, steel conrods, forged pistons, bespoke cams and valve springs, and Prodrive’s own intake and exhaust manifolds. The result is a sprightly lump producing around 440 hp at 6,000 RPM (redline is 6,500) in max tune, and 457 lb-ft from 3,000 RPM. Updated electronics, fueling, and cooling round out the tuning package.
Let us not forget that the P25’s engineering brief points to an experience-car for drivers with rallying on the brain. Thus, all the proper gear is in place: A single, two-way paddle shifter controls a pneumatically actuated six-speed sequential manual, with a start-off clutch and Prodrive’s own control software on top. A driver-controlled active center diff, a full, adjustable Bilstein suspension setup, unboosted brakes, and optional half roll-cage and hydraulic handbrake add rally-stage flair.
Three driving modes manage engine output, with Road at 360 hp, Sport with the full beans, and Sport Plus adding that anti-lag detonation that keeps the turbo spinning off-throttle. Thus, a high-temperature-resistant Akrapovic exhaust, with a silencer bypass, is made from a combination of stainless steel, Inconel and titanium. Racecar stuff.
One of the most difficult parts of the P25’s development, Prodrive reps say, was balancing the car’s hardcore rally feel with the kind of refinement the buyer of a half-million-dollar car might expect. Along with forgoing the wail of straight-cut gears, suspension tuning, was a vexing development challenge: too stiff and you’ll turn off the sensitive of spine; too soft and it’s a performance buzzkill.
Slipping behind the wheel, it’s clear the P25’s interior is for business, with fields of alcantara, rally-blue stitching, and a carbon-fiber console with a screen for Apple CarPlay, of all things; I’m pretty sure I’d only use that to stream vintage rally videos from YouTube. Releasing the start-off clutch takes a little finesse, as does modulating the throttle to minimize slap-back.
The P25 hasn’t been smoothed out in the name of effortless drivability. It wants a driver to approach it with confidence and a bit of an attitude. It’s built to be driven quickly and well. If you’re not into that, I’m sure there’s a purple Rolls Royce with your name on it.
With three laps around the small circuit, minus one to learn the corners, the test drive is more of a beak-wetting than a proper shakedown. Still, by lap two I’m more confident; the P25’s light weight, loads of power, acres of grip, and aggressive turn-in match it perfectly to the course’s tight corners and linked sweepers. The steering is an absolute joy, with transient responses following in lockstep, with body roll appearing as a feature rather than a bug. Shifts are quick as a monkey fart, although if you’re not used to the two-way paddle, it’s easy to bang off an accidental downshift.
Later on, when I’m on a hot lap with Higgins, it’s clear he’s at a driver’s feast. The car is perpetually up on its toes, and he’s making fingertip corrections. While the P25 is not for the average exotic-car shopper, it is the perfect exotic for a buyer who craves more engagement than a standard supercar can offer. It’s for a special kind of track-rat enthusiast for whom Subaru’s storied rally history brings more cache than Ferrari’s racing history does.
While the price is in the Ferrari range, Prodrive is only building 25 examples of the P25 in 2023, in both right and left-hand drive, all of which are accounted for. (As for whether it’s road-legal in America, that’s kind of unclear, although at least a couple of orders are going here; being a restomod, things could get murky there. I’d tell you to talk to Prodrive about it, but they are sold out.)
If you have to ask why a Subaru Impreza—ANY Subaru Impreza—might cost more than a condo in Massapequa Park, the Prodrive P25 will put a knot in your brain stem. If you keep a shrine to Colin McRae and Richard Burns, have a VHS collection of 1993-2000 Group A and World Rally Championships in a lock box; can rattle off every style of Impreza headlamp—from hawkeye through, I dunno, Steve eye?—and have a pile of cash, the reason is obvious. If you are one of those people, this is a juicy time to be your kind of motoring enthusiast.
Mike Spinelli needs no introduction, but I’m writing one for him anyway. The founding editor of Jalopnik, former editor-in-chief of 0-60 and co-host of the TV show /DRIVE on NBC Sports, he’s covered cars and car culture across just about every medium there is. —PG
Here I am thinking at the start of the article how much I love the irreverent yet informative writing style that the Autopian fosters. This sort of writing sure is why I prefer this over the old site.
Then I see the byline!
Exciting stuff!
Love this thing but the mirrors are awful.
This has about as much value to me, as a million dollar camper. It’s pretty, its got some cool features….but you will never really use it and it’s a huge waste of money at the end of the day.
For 80-100k maybe, but I can’t wrap my head around people spending money like that on redone subaru, its mind-blowingly stupid. I wonder what type of deal the second owner will get.
I never got the Scubaru fandom. I mean the good ones are wicked fierce but i prefer not being michelin manned in a race suit head to toe with that four cylinder popping motor ATFOOM. ILL take a Jag motor, or lotus a stately thrum that slowly possesses your soul the faster you go. A fold down top to let nature in and absolutely no fancy doodads to take over the driving duties. I always figured a scubaru ensuite would be like being stuffed in a stack of tires and rolled down hill.
You must never drive in snow. Audi and Subaru are the ultimate winter chariots.
How is it that two web sites have the same stories non-stop? Do you guys just look at each other’s sites?
Embargoes!
Usually, when an automaker or shop invites a bunch of people to drive a new or special car, they set an “embargo” on drive impressions—as in, no publishing what your experience was like until a certain time on a certain date. This way, no one gets that extra advantage of being first with, say, an incomplete or half-assed story released solely to nab the advantage of being first. It gets rid of a little bit of that race-to-the-bottom.
They do the same for information on new cars, but that’s an agreement made between an outlet and the manufacturer. Agree to the embargo, get information early to pre-write for a certain release time. Otherwise, you end up waiting for the public release at embargo time or a leak to get out with said information. Jalopnik infamously didn’t agree to new product embargoes for a while (ahem, under Matt) in order to capitalize on leaks as they happen, but it’s usually understood that the embargo means bupkis if there’s a significant enough leak. Sometimes a leak prompts all the folks who agreed to the embargo to drop their articles early, too, usually with a heads-up to the manufacturer that “yo, uh, this information is all out anyway.”
Yeah, embargoes are very common. Especially in tech. And thanks to ads and Google crap, first-in-wins. My numbers are old, but typically ‘first post’ on something like a new video card will get 80-90% of the lifetime ad revenue. Every other site on the internet has to fight over the remaining 10-20%.
Which is why you have sites which I won’t name that continually post absolutely false information. Because they can pull something out of their ass, and profit nicely off it, while every other site might get 1% or 2% of the remaining share debunking their crap.
But I digress; the point of embargos (which are and are not NDAs – that’s a whole other topic) is to more or less sort-of level the playing field. And because the fact is that if they said “sure, R&T can post on Monday, C&D can post on Tuesday, so-and-so can post on Wednesday”?
Nobody’s going to show up except R&T. There’s literally no point. It costs them a whole lot of money to show up, shoot footage, write and edit everything, and basically nobody on earth is going to read or watch. They already got the news from R&T, why would they bother reading C&D?
And most outlets that refuse to comply with embargoes (as opposed to NDAs) just end up blacklisted, or moved to the ‘back of the pack.’ Especially ones that break embargoes just to ‘scoop’ (hoover up the ad revenue) other outlets.
And yeah, that’s also why the thundering herd thing as soon as one person violates embargo. In tech, people have goofed the embargo unintentionally (“you said 9AM?” “PACIFIC NOT EASTERN!” “… oh shit.”) which has resulted in half-baked half-edited stories and videos being shoved out the door literally within minutes, or completely spiked because they couldn’t get something out in that first hour.
The auto is actually one of the only sites that has a bunch of different stories. I also like to read the over-lapping ones, it helps sus out a real review on cars or experiences.
Yeah, plus I like reading everyone’s different takes on cool cars. It’s kind of frustrating when there’s one person covering multiple outlets with similar stories, though. Like, I get *why* the 911 Dakar’s North American invite list for the big Moroccan debut was so short—that ain’t a cheap trip, especially for a low-volume car that sells out on its own for being so special. As with this Prodrive car, if you waited until reviews came out to nab an allocation, good freakin’ luck. It’s probably not gonna happen. At that point, any reviews are more of a brand-building exercise than a marketing one, but I’m sure as hell going to click on everything that mentions the 911 Dakar in the headline because be still my dumb hoon heart, they actually made a factory safari hoonmobile.
That’s not a knock on colleagues who scattershot their reviews to whoever would take them—money’s tight as hell in this stupid, backwards, dying industry and everyone wanted a review of that, so it’s a no-brainer to send your takes far and wide. But as a reader…dang it! I get a bit down the page, and the takeaways are largely the same as another piece I just read from…oh, it IS the same person I’ve read before. Like, good for them, but also who else drove this thing? I want to hear from them!
(Not to pick on parsh, either—like, I get why they did that on their end, too. That’s just the last one I can remember where I had serious reader deja vu across a bunch of the usual reads.)
NOW SOMEONE FUND A RALLIART COMPETITOR.
(You all stay the hell away from the T35 RS2000’s, I’ll break your fingers! >:| )
Oh, and a head-to-head against VSC. For giggles.
YES RALLIART
BRING BACK RALLIART
MITSU FTW 4EVER!!!!!
Spinelli!
Bitgy!
Holy shit, it’s Mike Spinelli! I was reading jalopnik in the early days of weird eastern block cars and project car hell in high school, which is probably where my problematic affinity for strange shitty cars comes from. Thanks for that! Looking forward to reading more from you soon!
Thanks! And you’re welcome!
That thing is hot as hell! Nice to see you here Spinelli!
Spinelli? Spicolli? Did you order enough pizza for the whole class?
Gee. Never heard that one before…
As a Spinale, same…
Who wants to loan me $500K?
And by “loan” you mean ‘don’t expect to get it back’?
Wheels are the wrong color
You can buy an actual ProDrive McRae test car that has been restored and updated for less. I dunno.
https://racecarsdirect.com/Advert/Details/138142/subaru-impreza-gpa-prodrive
A former WRC car made softer for street sounds cheaper.
$507,720 is less than $500,000? Must be that new math.
Exchange rates are complicated
“[A]lthough if you’re not used to the two-way paddle, it’s easy to bang off an accidental downshift.”
Ha, “accidental downshift?” There might be times when that’d be better known as a money shift. Oh dear.
YES. I knew I was forgetting the name for that.
In a sequential transmission that’s much less likely to cause problems. In fact, in a car like this it’s designed to potentially downshift that far that quickly. You may not have intended to but the car can handle it. The money shift is where gears are being accidentally skipped, e.g. a 5-2 downshift when you meant to do 5-4, causing a massive overrev condition.
If you’re at the top of the tach in 3rd gear and accidentally grab 2nd instead of 4th, then just dump the clutch, I’d think that would still qualify as a money shift… you still just broke a lot of expensive hardware
THE Mike Spinelli? Love to see it folks!
I can’t even begin to imagine paying $500,000 for a damn Impreza. It’s clearly impressive as hell and I won’t even pretend to understand hardcore JDM fans because their level of dedication borders on cult like…so I’m not surprised that these are sold out, but sheesh. For $500,000 I could have a McLaren Artura, an RS6 Avant, and roughly 100 grand leftover. Maybe a kitted out manual 718 Boxster to round things out?
Anyway, I don’t get it but I’m happy it exists. Also welcome Mike! Glad to have you 🙂
I don’t have the kind of cash it takes to even rent one of these for a few hot laps. But I do kind of get it with these. It’s basically a bespoke supercar wearing a disguise using lots of Subaru parts.
If someone gave me one, I’d have a good amount of fun, try not to kill myself, and then sell it so I can pay off my house and buy a used version of one of the cars you mentioned.
totally possible to spend $500k doing head gaskets over and over 😛
Doesn’t seem any stranger to me than dropping what ever singer is asking for a tarted up bug. I sort of like these high end resto-mods, I’d do something along these lines if I ever found myself in that kind of tax bracket.
“For $500,000 I could have a McLaren Artura, an RS6 Avant, and roughly 100 grand leftover.”
If you were that rich, and looking for something interesting and unique, why not? Put this next to your Ferrari Purosangue and call it a day.
Seeing new Ferraris and Lambos go for over $300,000 makes me feel like this is not out of the question.
This makes me miss my 2000 2.5RS, and even more that I never got around to swapping in an STi drivetrain like I had planned when I bought it. Ah, memories…
As with the others: Welcome Mike! Glad to see you again!
I’ve never driven a supercar, but they certainly seem kind of dull in a Vanilla Ice sort of way. Outrageous, outlandish, trendy, but yet, somehow, about as interesting to me as a green door knob.
Supercars are for rich masochists without a wife? Torture to even be in. Nothing fits right. Uncomfortable but if you got mad money way cheaper than an ex wife.
Thanks guys! It’s nice to be back among the magnolias. Because only the best Red Skelton reference for you.
Great article Mike! SO glad to see you here at the Autopian! The old crew is all back! 😀
And lets enjoy it without the 2nd generation of SNL.
Spinelli!
Arch Duke! It’s been a minute!
Too long, too long
Spinelli on Autopian. Wow, the world moves in swirls and eddies.
This Prodrive is a beautiful thing and I’m glad it exists, I’m sure it will make some people happy in short frenetic bursts, but being sold out confirms there is just too much money sloshing around in the world.
In too few hands.
Call it a Japanese Stradale all you like, but it’s no Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale in terms of looks. It’s boxy, badassed, ugliness in a compact package, and is able to punch well above its weight. AWD and 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds? Best believe I would hoon the shit out of this thing if given the chance.
This is a great write-up (thanks for this, a fun read) but if I’ve got $500k to spend on a car, it wouldn’t be on a single Subaru, no matter what’s been done to it. But I don’t begrudge someone who does think it’s worth it (apparently at least 25 folks since they’re all gone!).
Yeah, for that much I would much rather have my own junkyard w/ hundreds of classic cars to fix up
Hey Mike Spinelli!!!!!!!!!! Glad to see you again 😀
Oh man, it’s like Old Home Week!
Welcome aboard Mike. GREAT to see another well respected author here