It’s a hill climb, and hill climbs are competitions. Not every car came to Goodwood last weekend with competitive intentions, but Subaru’s WRX: Project Midnight did. The flat black sedan with the (surprisingly legible) gloss black decals was there to set the fastest time up the Duke of Richmond’s driveway. The ’83 Subaru GL wagon was there to party, but had a few very impressive laps tucked away just in case. Pastrana’s final lap supposedly saw him show the weekend’s best pace through the first two sectors of the course before stuffing it into the hay bails in the last sector.
Fans looking to see who would set the fastest time up the hill were treated to a battle between a production car-based WRX driven by Scott Speed, and yet another bonkers entry in Ford’s Supervan story, a 1400-horsepower, tube-framed EV van driven by Romain Dumas.
Even with its massive widebody, The Subaru weighs in at under 2,500 pounds, 1000 pounds less than a stock WRX. Its RX-derived flat-four generates 670 horsepower. Like the Family Huckster, it was created by Vermont SportsCar over the course of about 3 months. It’s really unlimited, aside from what must have been a very healthy budget. There are no rules for building a car to run at Goodwood, unless you’re McMurtry. You could think of it as an evolution of the Airslayer that starred in Gymkhana 2020, but optimized for outright speed and driveability instead of sliding and flying. The rear wing comes from Subaru’s ARA program and the suspension is Reiger stuff, which should be familiar to ARA fans. The engine is pushed way back and the radiator lives in the trunk behind two massive fender mounted scoops. It’s a massively cool car and between the two Subarus and their two fan-friendly drivers, the Subaru tent was packed with fans all weekend.
You probably know that the Ford won, but the two cars vying for hill climb supremacy were two of many cars that put times down, and a lot of those I don’t expect to see again in my life — certainly not hustling up a hill a few hay bales away from me. I’ll throw a few of those in another gallery.