It looked awesome. It sounded even better. It was the very definition of sendy. But what was the Subaru that shook Goodwood on Sunday?
It’s fairly rare for cars that conquer Pikes Peak to come to Chichester on England’s south coast and not win the Sunday Shootout at the Festival of Speed. Romain Dumas upheld that tradition with Ford’s Supervan 4.2 nicely. Nothing could compete with the 1400 electric horses the Frenchman had on tap.
And when it was wheeled out of the paddock for the first time on Thursday morning, not too many gave Subaru Motorsports USA and Vermont SportsCar’s latest creation much of a second glance. Until they got close. Or within earshot.
It looked like another WRX with bits bolted on. Such thoughts couldn’t have been further from the truth. Project Midnight might have had something of a stealth look about it – which only added to the intrigue and coolness – but when the flag dropped and Scott Speed sent it in the direction of Turn 1, there was nothing to disguise the performance.
Only Ford's Supervan 4.2 bettered Scott Speed's run in Project Midnight Subaru WRX
Speed turned heads for four days, before placing the car second only (and first internal combustion) to Dumas on Sunday afternoon. Now, we all know former Formula 1 racer Scott’s a proper wheelman, but showing a race-trim Porsche 992 GT3 Cup car the way home on asphalt was a demonstration of just what a machine Lance Smith’s VSC crew had built.
Visibly similar to the Airslayer Gymkhana car, Project Midnight took that concept a step further. Airslayer was built with a degree of compromise in mind: it had to work for Gymkhana as well as the Mount Washington Hillclimb and a variety of other events. Project Midnight was a WRX born for one thing: pure Tarmac speed.
That meant an ultra-wide carbon-fiber body with wild aerodynamics and a weight saving of over 1000 pounds over a standard WRX – at 2500, it was 300 pounds lighter than Airslayer. Under the hood, the turbocharged two-liter, flat-four engine was cranking out 670bhp and 680 lb-ft of torque when she was singing at 9500rpm.
Travis Pastrana again starred in Huckster Subaru
And just when you thought the drama was done, downshifts – any kind of shifts – delivered a burst of flame through exhausts exiting through the hood. From any angle, it was a sight to behold and, had it not been for the Blue Oval’s latest fast van, it would have been the best of the best at the world’s most famous hillclimb.
Down the years, Subaru and VSC have combined to bring absolute magic to the Festival of Speed (talking of which the Huckster and Travis Pastrana were another huge draw this time around). It makes you wonder how they’re going to stop the world’s biggest and best automotive fashion parade in its tracks next year.
Stay tuned…
