Prodrive P25 review: This little firecracker is gleefully unhinged Reviews 2023

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What in the ghost of Colin McRae is this glorious thing?

It’s the Prodrive P25, a love letter to the glory days of the Subaru World Rally Championship in the form of a modern reinterpretation of the Subaru Impreza WRC97. Remember the infamous 22B? Built to celebrate the success of rally cars.

It’s a high-end restomod for the Gran Turismo generation like one of Singer’s reinvented Porsche 911s, but not as cocky and much, much, much more fun to drive.

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You may remember the P25 from its premiere at last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, when Prodrive said it planned to build figure 25 examples. Each one cost £460,000 excuse me what you said before in taxes and other expenses (£552,000 in the UK ). Yet just three days later, all 25 cars had been announced. One guy even bought two. Lucky so-and-so.

Details. Now. Give me.

All done to look like a spitting image of a 97 Subaru Impreza WRC rally car minus the livery, natch. Approximately 75% of the bodywork is carbon fiber and the P25 uses the chassis and running gear of the late-generation Subarus WRX STI. The wheels come from Prodrive and the bespoke tires are made by Bridgestone. Bilstein supplies the adjustable shock absorbers, AP Racing supplies the brakes and the exhaust is Akrapovic’s work, which is so loud he made me pour my coffee when one of the Prodrive engineers fired up the P25 inside a garage. (I’m not mad about it.)

It looks killer. But why does something seem out of place?

Because something is wrong. In the time since the P25’s debut, Prodrive has redesigned the front end and completely killed the looks. The mesh grille inserts look bad, even though the vents are bigger for better airflow, but the new LED headlights are even worse, looking like something out of an auto tuner. Gone are the classic OG Imprezas lights and huge fog light inserts. Boo.

Also, let’s talk about wheels. I like the Prodrive-designed 19-inchers, but come on, what’s a bright blue Impreza without gold wheels? Thankfully, Prodrive offers a gold option for the P25, but strangely, the company says only seven customers have ordered cars this way. By the way, most of the cars are finished in blue, which is a special paint, by the way, and not World Rally Blue, but one person decided to have the P25 finished in yellow, which, you know, probably looks Fantastic.

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All right, what’s under the hood?

It’s Subaru’s EJ25 engine, the WRX STI’s 2.5-liter flat-4. There are a ton of mods, including things like high-flow injectors, forged pistons, an air-to-water charge cooler, a Garret turbocharger, and more. The end result is 440PS and 457Nm of torque, which is a bit more than Prodrive originally promised. It’s also a relative ton of crap considering this car weighs 1,150kg. Fun fact: The original 22B was actually 100kg heavier and had less than 100bhp.

The gearbox is a race-style six-speed sequential automatic, with an automated manual clutch that is used on takeoff. There is a paddle on the right side of the wheel that you pull towards you to upshift and away to downshift. Use launch control for a proper wop-op-op-op-op-op start and the P25 will hit 60 mph in 2.8 seconds.

Sweet cupcakes, that’s fast.

Quick doesn’t even begin to describe it. This thing absolutely delivers. Hit the Anti-Lag button on the console and the weight of the engine’s torque hits like a sack of bricks, so you can briefly shift the transmission and not have to worry about dumping each gear to kiss redline peak horsepower. The single-stick shift logic takes a spell to get used to, and you’ll absolutely screw up a gear change or two, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

So how does it drive?

The P25 is the closest thing to a street legal racing car I’ve ever driven. It’s an animal. He’s completely out of his mind. There is not an iota of docility to be found. Prodrive says some people were put off by the P25’s antics because they didn’t expect it to be so blatantly hardcore. But to me, that’s what makes this car so great.

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But also, don’t hate the game. I love that Prodrive has seen a market for the P25 and I hope other companies realize that the next generation of financially gifted Millennials are more likely to buy cars that resonate with their past. That means Imprezas, Skylines, Supras, even stubby little Peugeots. This type of recreation shouldn’t be limited to brands like Lamborghini and Porsche.

The Prodrive P25 is an amazing labor of love and I hope it will be the first of many cars to come. But more importantly, I hope these enthusiastic car collectors don’t relegate their P25s to garage queen status. A car this unabashedly loud deserves to have its doors busted off.

Photography: Michael Shaffer

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