The idea of spending more than half a million dollars on a Subaru Impreza that isn’t a works rally car might seem crazy. Yet why should high-end restomods be limited to traditional classics, like re-created Aston Martin DB4s or better-than-new Shelby Mustangs? The Impreza’s motorsports glory and cult following means it can inspire an emotional connection just as strong. That’s something Prodrive has proved by selling the entire run of 25 of its P25s, despite a base price (in the U.K.) of nearly $600,000.
Making the Prodrive P25
It’s been a year since we first told you about the British motorsports engineering company’s plans to create the P25—what it claimed would be the ultimate street-legal first-generation Impreza—and now we’ve had the chance to drive the car on a test track in England. Much has changed since Prodrive first announced the project last year, with the finished P25 getting new bumpers and lights, a redesigned rear-wing element, a different interior—and also a power boost. Last year Prodrive promised the P25 would make at least 400 horsepower, but that has now been increased to 450 horsepower, along with what we’re told will be more than the original promise of 442 pound-feet of torque.
The engine is a heavily reworked version of Subaru’s long-serving EJ25 turbocharged 2.5-liter flat-four. It has been given forged pistons, stronger connecting rods, ported cylinder heads, and a new Garrett turbo. It also features a popping-and-banging anti-lag mode to keep the turbo spinning when the car is in what is meant to be a track-only Sport Plus mode. And the engine exhales through a bespoke Akrapovič exhaust system. It’s mated to a six-speed sequential gearbox, plus an active electronically controlled center differential that varies the amount of torque sent to each axle.
The P25 demonstrator looks immaculate up close, but unlike many “continuation” models, it isn’t all-new. Underneath is an original Japanese-market two-door Impreza WRX STI, one that has been pulled to pieces and then restored and upgraded, with carbon fiber replacing sheetmetal for the roof, trunklid, hood, fenders, and the raised rear wing. Altogether, Prodrive claims that the P25 weighs just 2646 pounds, a figure that seems unlikely to modern eyes—the 2023 BMW M2 is around 3800 pounds—but is a reminder of how light even all-wheel-drive performance cars used to be.
Driving the Prodrive P25
Our drive took place entirely at the Millbrook Proving Ground in England, on the tight 0.8-mile handling circuit that has been designed to replicate the corners and contours of a rural British byway—which makes it an appropriate testing environment for a car produced by the same outfit responsible for Subaru’s World Rally Championship glory years.
Climbing in to the P25 reveals what may be the finest quality cabin ever fitted to an Impreza. Not a high bar given the low-rent plastics of the original car, but now pretty much every surface in the P25 is covered in either carbon fiber or microfiber. Even the switchgear has been redesigned: There’s a panel of miniature rockers on the center console, an engine start/stop button (the first-gen Imprezas just used a key), and an infotainment touchscreen, plus a digital instrument cluster. There’s a sizable carbon-fiber shift paddle on the right of the steering wheel, but none on the left. This is how Prodrive built all of the paddle-shift WRC cars for Subaru: Pull for up, push for down.
The engine fires up to a busy, mechanical idle. The P25 is loud but much less raucous than a real WRC challenger would be—conversations are possible without an intercom. The sequential transmission engages first with a clunk, and there’s the novelty of having to negotiate a clutch pedal to get moving. The clutch feels oddly light; it turns out to be actually controlling the clutch electronically, as Prodrive decided a two-pedal system would be too brutal for road use. But once moving, both upshifts and downshifts can be performed without the clutch.
Trust builds quickly, as do memories of driving this generation of Impreza when it was new. The P25 isn’t quite as playful or adjustable as the original car was, largely because it has substantially more grip and a more disciplined chassis. Boost pressure needs a little while to build at lower revs, but once it has the engine pulls with visceral vigor. It’s less keen to rev than the original car was; the redline is marked at 6500 rpm, while the 22B zinged to 7900 rpm. But there was so much midrange torque, this never felt like a limitation on the tight circuit, especially given the lightning responses of the gearbox.
The P25 combines softish springs with firm dampers, using wheel travel to fill dips and compressions but with the Bilstein dampers preventing unwanted secondary movement. There is discernible roll under cornering loads, but only to an extent that helps to orientate the driver to growing lateral forces. The lowness of the boxer engine’s center of gravity is obvious in the P25’s willingness to change direction.
But steering feels very different from our memories of the original Impreza, which had slow initial reactions. The P25 feels much more direct and delivers crisp feedback from the front tires. At Millbrook many of these messages were about the limited grip the leading Bridgestone Potenzas had to call on; our drive came after several other hotshoe journalists had taken their turns, and the front rubber was clearly past its best, bringing the need to manage understeer in tighter turns. But traction was superb, and the upgraded brakes, with grooved rotors gripped by six-pot AP Racing calipers up front, delivered huge stopping power without complaint.
Prodrive’s engineering team says the goal with the P25 was to create a road-legal car that would be faster than an original WRC-spec Impreza. We didn’t get to confirm that claim, but we can’t imagine that any of the small group of buyers—at least some of whom are in the U.S.—will ever feel their cars are lacking the capacity to create thrills. Let’s hope that at least some of them get driven in anger.
Senior European Correspondent
Mike Duff has been writing about the auto industry for two decades and calls the UK home, although he normally lives life on the road. He loves old cars and adventure in unlikely places, with career highlights including driving to Chernobyl in a Lada.