Project Midnight? Nah, it’s not for me. It’s not what a Subaru is supposed to be.
On my desk, I have three competition car models. The McLaren MP4/4 reminds me of everything that was extraordinary about 1988 and then there’s a Lancia Delta S4, for which no explanation is necessary.
The third? It’s K555 STE. The only Subaru Legacy RS ever to win a round of the World Rally Championship. It’s Colin’s car from the 1993 Rally New Zealand. But it could be Richard’s Elonex car from that year’s British championship. Or Ari’s Rothmans version from the 1991 RAC.
The Legacy. The original. The best.
I know, that’s a big call given what followed. But still, the Legacy – McRae loved it and it was Burns’ favorite. That’s good enough for me.
It was the sheer brutishness of the thing that got me. I remember watching top British national driver Chris Griffiths reverse his ex-works Legacy out of its service bay on Epynt in 1997. The weather was hot, dry and sunny. The car was sitting on sticky slicks. As Chris backed it out, the rear wheels were slipping, snatching at the asphalt. It was like a caged animal.
K555 STE has a special place in David Evans' heart
And that was on Tarmac. Put it in the woods, listen to that bark and bellow between the trees and brace yourself for Subaru’s first and foremost sensory assault.
Project Midnight is the product of the verdant and versatile imagination of Vermont SportsCar. It’s what happens when you bring a bunch of open-minded engineers together and ask the ‘what if’ question. Before this came Airslayer, and before that the Family Huckster.
The Family Huckster wasn’t a favorite for me, either. But, I did appreciate the active aero and all the trickery which came with it. And who can’t find a place in their heart for a car which jumps over a hovering helicopter…
However when I heard about Scott Speed’s attempt to climb the north-east America’s highest mountain faster than anybody else, I was in. I love a car versus mountain thing. Especially this mountain.
You have to feel for Mount Washington a little bit, at 6,000 feet it’s a proper hill – but it stands very much in the shadow of Pikes Peak… America’s Mountain, which piles another 8,000 feet of elevation on top. And has the more famous of the two hillclimbs.
But, when it comes to speed, Mount Washington, New Hampshire is unmatched – with a recorded summit windspeed of 231mph!
So I’m in, and starting a deeper dive into the car. Deeper and deeper.
Delving into the details of Project Midnight proved fascinating
OK, I’m hooked. This thing might be a Legacy-level Subaru.
Granted, it’s not going to be seen in gravel trim any time soon, but for asphalt it really is quite something. And it’s mean as hell.
From the ground up, the latest generation WRX platform is stripped and built with just two things on the mind of the VSC team: weight and rigidity. In a build process which tops 3000 hours, an original chassis is taken apart. Brackets, factory spot welds, anything not absolutely necessary to the fastest possible forward momentum is drilled out. VSC’s composite shop bakes its own carbon and Kevlar to replace metal panelling and the regular flat-four block is replaced by something custom-built and all-alloy. It’s then located further back and lower down.
Underneath the car, every seam is stitch-welded for more torsional rigidity. And the aero, there’s nothing trick, just low drag and high downforce. Once Speed pulls the bigger gears, the front splitter and floor pan are shaped to suck the thing to Mount Washington.
There’s no ability to alter the car’s mid-air pitch, there are no active body flaps or devices to extricate pockets of wheel arch air pressure building while going ballistic.
This is a route one rally car turned road racer. It keeps its boots on the grounds while it hauls ass up the mountain.
Scott Speed and James Tate's smiles say it all
The Airslayer’s WRC-tuned Reiger suspension is binned in favor of a super-stiff, custom VSC damper. That along with completely redesigned geometry and some of the most extreme negative camber you’ll see on a Subaru help avoid any kind of pitch or roll which would disrupt airflow.
The two-liter H4 motor offers – with the help of a mighty blower bolted to the side – 670bhp and 920Nm of torque. And, here’s the thing, she revs all the way to 9500rpm. A locked center differential splits power 50:50 front and rear. There’s no hint of any electrical or hydraulic jiggery-pokery here. Front and rear, there are plated diffs designed to hook the car into corners with zero slip while delivering maximum traction at the exit.
But somebody’s still got to drive it – and Speed did exactly that earlier this month. Admittedly, the 7.6-mile Climb to the Clouds is now all-asphalt, but beating Travis Pastrana’s Airslayer record by 16 seconds – setting a new record of 5:11.89 – was something special.
Go watch the video. It’s just over five minutes of entirely memorable, in fact mesmerizing viewing.
Project Midnight’s been around for a couple of years now, but I’ve kind of been in denial. I’m done with that now. It’s a beauty. Congratulations to Speed, obviously, but also to James Tate and his team at Subaru and to everybody at VSC.
The Legacy lives on…
