Prodrive P25 review: this little firecracker is gleefully unhinged

What in Colin McRae’s ghost is this glorious thing?

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

It’s a high-end restomod for the Gran Turismo generation – like one of Singer’s “reimagined” Porsche 911s, just not as uppity, and way, way, way more hilarious to drive.

You might remember the P25 from its premiere at last year's Goodwood Festival of Speed, when Prodrive said it planned to build – go figure – 25 examples. Each one cost a sorry-what-did-you-say £460,000 before taxes and other fees (£552,000 in the UK). Yet just three days later, all 25 cars had been spoken for. One guy even bought two of 'em. Lucky so-and-so.

Details. Now. Gimme.

The whole thing’s done up to look like a spitting image of a Subaru Impreza WRC97 rally car – minus the livery, natch. About 75 per cent of the body is made of carbon fibre, and the P25 uses the chassis and running gear from Subaru’s last-gen WRX STI. The wheels come from Prodrive and the bespoke tyres are made by Bridgestone. Bilstein supplies the adjustable dampers, AP Racing provides the brakes, and the exhaust is the work of Akrapovic, which is so loud that it made me spill my coffee when one of the Prodrive engineers fired up the P25 inside a garage. (I’m not mad about it.)

Sounds killer. But why does something seem… off?

Because something is off. In the time since the P25’s debut, Prodrive redesigned the front end, and it totally killed the look. The mesh grille inserts look bad, though the openings are larger for better airflow, but the new LED headlights are even worse – they look like something off a tuner car. The OG Impreza’s classic lights and huge foglight inserts are gone. Boo.

Also, let's talk 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 weirdly, the company says only seven customers ordered cars this way. Speaking of which, 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 their P25 done in up in yellow, which, you know, probably looks rad.

Alright, what’s under the hood?

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

The gearbox is a race-style six-speed sequential automatic, with an automated manual clutch that you use on takeoff. There’s one 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 slam to 60mph in 2.8 seconds.

Sweet cuppin’ cakes, that’s quick.

Quick doesn’t even begin to describe it. This thing absolutely hauls. Hit the Anti-Lag button on the console and the brunt of the engine’s torque hits like a sack of bricks, so you can short-shift the transmission and not have to worry about winding out each gear to give the redline power peak a smooch. The single-paddle shift logic takes a spell to get used to, and you absolutely will screw up a gear-change or two, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

So, how’s it drive?

The P25 is as close to a road-legal race car as I’ve ever driven. It’s an animal. It’s completely unhinged. There isn’t a modicum of docility to be found. Prodrive says some people have been turned off by the P25’s antics because they didn’t expect it to be so unabashedly hardcore. But to me, that’s what makes this car so fantastic.

Ripping around a handling track at the Millbrook Proving Grounds, I quickly learn that the P25 rewards hooligan behaviour. It wants to be driven hard and slammed through gears. It loves to clip corners and kick up dirt. It’s happy being wrung out like a child swinging a rag doll. Call up every teenage memory you have of doing stupid antics in your friends' parents' cars and channel that energy into driving the P25.

Could you use it as a daily driver?

I mean, technically, you can use anything as a daily driver if you've got a strong enough constitution. But the P25 is for sure better used as a toy. It's super stiff and super loud and, again, race car. That said, I'd love to throw a proper set of winter tyres on one of these and go play around in a blizzard. I bet it'd be a riot.

What's the interior like?

Keep in mind that this car starts its life as a 1997 Subaru Impreza. This is not a luxury car, even with such an exorbitant price tag.

The cabin is all about business. There's a touchscreen multimedia system which can surprisingly run Apple CarPlay, but that's about as technologically advanced as the P25 gets. The switches and dials look like race car switches and dials. The steering wheel is a race car steering wheel. The pedal box is exposed metal and raised off the exposed floor. There's nothing artisanal about this restoration.

Prodrive will leave the Impreza's back seats intact if you wish, but if you have them removed, the company will fit a half roll cage, which really seems like the way to go. (Five customers opted for seats, FYI.) On that note, there are three different front seat options: standard Impreza chairs, carbon fibre reinforced seats, and full-on racing buckets. Prodrive says most folks went with the latter two, which also means they can have a six-point racing harness installed. Good times ahead for those buyers.

Okay, but £552k? For an Impreza? Really?

Look, considering it didn't even take Prodrive 72 hours to sell all 25 of these half-million-pound Imprezas, I don't think the price is a problem. Yes, it definitely strays from the Impreza's original mission of attainable thrills, but hey, that's how the high-end restomod business goes. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

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

The Prodrive P25 is a stunning labour of love, and I hope it's 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 rowdy deserves to have its doors driven off.

Photography: Michael Shaffer