If you’re familiar with Prodrive (and we’ll assume you are, given you’re reading this website), you’ll probably best know it as one of the biggest institutions in motorsport.
Since its inception in 1984, the Banbury-based firm has established itself as a go-to for big manufacturers wanting success on race tracks. Its CV includes several titles in the British Touring Car Championship, numerous efforts at Le Mans, most notably with Aston Martin and Ferrari, and a few years running Honda’s F1 team.
It’s off the beaten track where Prodrive is most renowned, though, and with a certain string of blue-and-yellow icons. In 1989, the company took the reins of Subaru’s World Rally Championship efforts, dominating the series for a three-year manufacturers’ title stretch in the ‘90s and three drivers’ titles in 1995, 2001 and 2003.
Those rally cars led to just about every Gary and Gavin (and in the case of my dad, Stu) across the UK driving a Subaru Impreza, so it felt inevitable that Prodrive would turn its talents to making those go faster, too. It had a hand in pretty much every version of the WRX STI at some stage, although it’s the GC8 P1 that sits at the pinnacle of them all.
Prodrive P1 line-up
With all that motorsport know-how and a proven track record of turning quick road cars into properly fast ones, there was a bit of wonder about how a Prodrive road car could look if the firm decided to make a machine of its own. Something we sort of got an answer to in 2006.
This was the Prodrive P2, a car you’ll certainly be familiar with if you partake in some casual old-school Top Gear rewatches from time to time.
Prodrive P2, rear 3/4
Unsurprisingly, it borrowed much from Subaru for the P2 – although not entirely the bits you’d expect. The steel monocoque chassis of the car was taken not from an Impreza, but instead a Subaru R1 – a dinky little kei car. Granted, that was pretty extensively modified.
Its footprint was small as a result of those origins. Measuring 1.9m wide and 1.3m tall, it was a compact thing and crucially had a wheelbase of just 2.5m. It also meant it weighed just 1100kg.
Prodrive P2, front 3/4
Yet, there was still room for Prodrive to cram in an EJ20 lifted from a JDM Impreza STI, tuned to produce 345bhp and fitted with an anti-lag system derived from the WRC car. Stick that up your pop-and-bang map.
That power was sent through an all-wheel drive system too, with the inclusion of Prodrive’s party trick Active Torque Dynamics system. That included active centre and rear differentials which, as demonstrated by Clarkson in that TG review, proved extremely complicated to explain but very effective in use.
The result of all this? 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds, a top speed of 174mph and many G-force warped faces.
Now, we’d love to tell you that Prodrive took 1,000,000 orders and now P2s are easy to find on the used market as a sub-£10,000 buy. Unfortunately, though, just one was made – serving as a proof-of-concept rather than a bonafide intent to build a production car.
It’d be another 16 years before Prodrive had a go at a road car once more, albeit this time with the P1-celebrating, half-a-million quid restomod P25. The P2 still lives in its UK HQ though, so at least it didn’t meet the cruel crusher fate many wonderful concepts often do.
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