Prodrive is restomodding the best year of Impreza

Friday, 20 May 2022

A Subaru Impreza similar to this raced in 1997, winning the constructors’ championship for Subaru and Prodrive.

It seems Prodrive is planning a special celebration for its 25th anniversary of winning the World Rally Championship with the Subaru Impreza.

The company posted a teaser image to its social media platforms, showing the unmistakable outline of a first-generation Impreza WRX along with the caption “an icon redefined”.

This suggests Prodrive is working on a restomod version of the WRX, similar to what Singer does with the Porsche 911.

We only need to wait a couple of days before the car is revealed on the 25th of May, but the name of P25 heavily implies it will be a nod to the 1997 rally car, which won the constructors' championship of the year. Colin McRae lost the driver’s win by a single point to Tommi Makinen of Mitsubishi.

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The mighty Subaru WRX STi 22B. Hopefully, Prodrive brings the shape back with modern power in the P25.

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This wouldn’t be the first time Prodrive has built a first-gen WRX either.

Back in 2000, Prodrive and Subaru built 1000 examples of the Prodrive One, or P1, which was largely based on the Impreza WRX STI 22b and had a revised version of the rally-spec engine producing 208kW/352N and a special tune of suspension.

As for the P25, there are zero confirmed details at this stage. It could be powered by a boosted flat-four engine pushing north of 220kW to keep up with modern WRX STIs, it might be a meticulous remake of the competition car, or it might even be electric. Probably not, but who knows?

In any case, we’ll know on the 25th of May.