Inside the rebuild of a rare red Subaru Impreza 555

Subarus are supposed to be blue, so they say. But not this one

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Ian Gwynne’s eyes are everywhere. And he’s listening intently. He’s been here before. There’s nothing new in the process, but breathing life into a Group A Subaru Impreza 555 second time around is special.

December’s just a day or two old and winter is very much in evidence; a blanket of freezing fog sits over this corner of Buckinghamshire. There’s something of a ’90s RAC feel about the whole thing: close your eyes and the chill nips your nose while your ears are filled with that beautiful off-beat burble of a Japanese-sourced, Prodrive-built boxer engine.

Shakedown day.

Rebuilding Subarus is nothing new for Gwynne and his BGMsport firm. But there’s something very different about this Impreza. It’s off color; very much a 555 in its away strip.

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Winfield sponsored many rally cars during the 1990s, but the Subaru is lesser remembered

Remember the Winfield car? It was Bruno Thiry’s ride for the 1997 Ypres Rally. The Belgian finished second to his equally illustrious countryman Freddy Loix, whose Marlboro-painted Toyota Celica GT-Four edged the Impreza by seven seconds. It was an epic affair. But it was also the only time Thiry drove this East Belgian Racing Team car.

Across the next two and a bit decades, the Subaru did the full tour of national rallies before arriving in Ireland. It wasn’t long before it was on Jim Harrison’s radar.

“I’d wanted one of those cars for a while,” Harrison told DirtFish. “I competed in one in the 1990s and always enjoyed driving them. Original cars are fairly tricky to get hold of these days, so when this one came up, I went for it and sent it to Ian to have a look at.

“When I bought it, it was in a Colin McRae livery, in blue and yellow. I wasn’t keen on that. It wasn’t blue, it was red.”

Harrison’s right. It was red. And it was rare. Cast your mind back, while Prodrive galloped through tin after tin of blue and yellow, the red paint sat on the shelf relatively untouched.

Gwynne takes up the story.

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Ian Gwynne's BGMSport outfit spent a lot of time perfecting the Impreza

“I quite liked the idea of Jim having the car back in the original red color,” he said. “So many of these cars are around in the works colors, this was something different. And, like Jim said, it’s important to maintain the car’s history and be true to it. So, we started sand-blasting the car and layer after layer of paint came off.

“It’s fair to say, taking it back to bare metal did uncover the horror story, but you kind of expect that with a car like this that’s been around a while and done so much rallying.”

The decision was taken, the job would be done properly: a complete rebuild.

“I didn’t want any compromise in the car,” said Harrison. “Ian was completely upfront with everything he did, showed me everything and we agreed, it needed to be done right.”

And today is evidence that it has, most definitely, been done properly. Twenty-seven years after it was first fired up, P228JWL is reborn. Time to go back inside.

“Today’s a shakedown,” said Gwynne. “The first time we run the car is just a straightforward drive up the road. With that done, we start to move through some systems checks.”

Not long after this car was built for the first time, Gwynne was in vaguely the same location doing the same job. Back in the day, it was Ian who completed most of Hyundai’s shakedown work with the Accent WRC.

“It’s the same job today,” he said. “It’s pretty straightforward. We have a data card in the car so I’ll download the data later and check it all just to make sure everything is working as it should, but pretty much all the information you need is on the screen you see in front of the co-driver.

“During the process you’re always looking at pressures and temps, transmission or engine, it’s commonsense stuff to keep an eye on sensors. As the shakedown moves forward, you put a couple of really good heat cycles through the car to make sure everything is perfect. We were also bedding in some [brake] pads this morning.

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All rally cars are special, but Ian has a particular soft spot for a Group A Subaru

“Honestly speaking, this is one of the nicest cars I’ve worked on. Driving it this morning was an absolute joy – these are all very, very good cars, but every now and then you get one that just feels right. That’s this one.

“Now all we’ll do is a spanner check and prepare it for delivery to Jim.

“It’s genuinely a privilege to be able to work on cars like this. Like you said, we are recreating history, rebuilding one of the world’s best Group A rally cars. To have seen this thing coming together and now to see it looking brand new, it’s fantastic. And it looks very good in red!”

No arguments here. And none from Harrison.

“Ian’s been sending me pictures,” he said. “I’d hoped to come along for the shakedown, but there’s just not time with work. I can’t wait to get in the thing now. I fully intend to use it on some Tarmac events, it’s there to have some fun.

“The first priority is to reach out to Bruno [Thiry] and see if he fancies driving it.”

Now, that’s our kind of history lesson.

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