If you’re looking for a modern-day Subaru Impreza 22B STI, this will be the closest you can get.
Prodrive, which is the UK-based motorsport firm behind some of Subaru’s greatest rally victories, is set to reveal its retro-looking P25 at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed in June.
Previewed in a sketch, the Prodrive P25 looks virtually identical to the rally-derived, two-door 1998 Subaru Impreza 22B STI, but thanks to “modern technology”, the motorsport firm claims it will be more powerful, lighter and have better handling.
The name P25 commemorates 25 years since the first Subaru Impreza World Rally Car (WRC) made its winning debut in the World Rally Championship.
Under the bonnet will be a 2.5-litre flat-four Boxer engine producing more than 298kW of power. It will be mated to a six-speed semi-automatic transmission with paddle shifters with drive sent to all four wheels.
For context, the original, road-going Subaru Impreza 22B STI was powered by a 2.2-litre flat-four Boxer engine which produced 206kW and 363Nm. It was mated to a close-ratio five-speed manual transmission with drive sent to all four wheels.
The Prodrive P25 will also apparently have a lightweight chassis with “extensive use of carbon fibre”. It’s unclear if this will be a bespoke platform or a re-engineered version of the existing Subaru Impreza WRC platform.
The UK-based motorsport firm will only produce 25 of these Subaru Impreza 22B-inspired cars, at its headquarters in Banbury, UK.
The Prodrive P25 has been designed by Peter Stevens, who designed the original Subaru Impreza WRC for Prodrive, while the engineering has been overseen by Prodrive technical director David Lapworth, who was responsible for engineering of the original rally car.
“The original 22B Impreza is considered the most iconic of Subarus and highly sought after,” said Pro chairman David Richards.
“We wanted to enhance everything that made that car so special by applying the very latest technology to create our own modern interpretation of a car that’s established a place in motoring history.”
Prodrive is already taking expressions of interest for the P25 and the first of the 25 cars will be delivered to customers later in 2022.
Subaru Impreza 22B STI
Limited-production reinterpretations of classic iconic vehicles are currently on a surge with vehicles such as the Lancia 037-inspired Kimera Evo37, Jaguar E-Type-inspired Eagle Lighweight GT and the Porsche 911 by Singer as recent examples.
DeLorean is also gearing up to reveal its retro-inspired DeLorean EV on May 31, 2022 before showing it off the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on August 18, 2022.
The Prodrive P25 will sit alongside the Hunter, which is a road-legal version of the brand’s Dakar Rally competitor, in the evolving Prodrive lineup.
Early Subaru Impreza WRX STI models were already legends, but they’ve arguably been made more significant by Subaru’s recent decision to kill the STI brand as we know it.
Subaru says it simply couldn’t make a new STI work in today’s context. In other words, it needs to cut its overall emissions.
“Subaru Corporation will fast-track their investment in future performance technologies, today confirming there will be no STI variant for the new generation Subaru WRX,” said Subaru Australia.