SIMPLY THE BEST
‘OK. WE GO. GO!’ THE PECULIAR QUALITIES OF THE thin, surprisingly high-pitched, Italian-accented voice in my earpieces are somehow exaggerated by the ethereal detachment of the Impreza’s inbuilt intercom system. It can only be Piero Liatti, Prodrive Subaru works driver from 1995 to ’98. Winner of the 1997 Monte Carlo Rally in an Impreza WRC. That Piero.
This is wild. I feel my left fingers squeeze the thin, simple, Alcantara-clad steering wheel rim even tighter and I move my right arm rigidly like a rod and piston to select first in the tight, six-speed H-pattern dog ’box. CLACK! It’s sweet. The worries about a ’box-full of neutrals and glistening swarf circulating in its oil now a fading memory. It might just be the best manual gearchange I’ve ever experienced – and just as well, because I’m going to be using it almost constantly over the next couple of miles; this very special Impreza is so short-geared it manages only 123mph in sixth…
This was once a recurring dream. In 1995 I was still at school, spending far too much time daydreaming about the World Rally Championship, and giving far too little attention to my A-levels. I’m sorry, Colin, but I’m blaming you entirely – a cut out photo of him drifting the Prodrive Subaru took pride of place under the plastic wrap of my topic folder. McRae was a man cast perfectly as the rock star of rallying, his raw talent, exuberant driving style and charisma making everything seem possible in a sport for so long dominated by drivers from northern Europe with a profusion of consonants in their names. Britpop and the prevailing culture of the day made it a happy time to be a teen, and Colin’s success somehow meant everything. Both he and Subaru were the underdogs, the anti-establishment. No wonder millions gravitated towards the sport.
And for me. Not the two-door World Rally Car rules Impreza that Colin drove in ’97 and ’98 before leaving for Ford, the Subaru that millions who played the video game associate him with. No. For me, it’ll always be about Group A, the car Subaru homologated as the Impreza 555, the Impreza that still made the deep, rumbly, window-rattling roar, the car that looked like the Turbo 2000 road car you could actually buy in British showrooms (as thousands did) right down to the tiny rear spoiler, the car that ignited people’s passion for fast Imprezas in the UK, the car in which Colin won his one and only world title.
