Subaru Impreza WRX: Accidental hero

The prerogative for rallying success was simple; grab a production car off a European assembly line, put dirt tyres on it, a Finn in the driver's seat, and win the championship.

Manufacturers like Saab, Lancia, Alpine, Fiat, Ford, Talbot, Audi and Peugeot traded titles like commodities, all the way into the late Eighties. It took until 1993 for a Japanese manufacturer to break the duck, and topple the domination of the mighty Delta Integrale's unbeaten six-year winning streak. And that Japanese car was the Toyota Celica, driven, of course, by a Finn; Juha Kankkunen.

But Fuji Heavy Industries also wanted a slice of fame and poured cash into its rallying project out of a bottomless tanker. The only problem was, they didn't have a Finn. Instead they had a young whippersnapper Scot going by the name of Colin McRae. Or Colin McCrash as he was more appropriately known. Needless to say, the blue 555-liveried Subaru tore around rally stages sans bonnet, doors, wings… But it did run around. All the way to a drivers' and manufacturers' championship in 1995.

So how did a largely ignored carmaker (Subaru was, kind of, the Isuzu of the day) reach the top of the rallying and PlayStation worlds in a handful of years?

Well, it could be argued that the Impreza WRX — the proper and only one worth noting, up until the STI joined the fray — was born purely by chance.

World rally rules changed, making the mildly successful all-wheel drive Legacy obsolete, and forcing Subaru to focus on a smaller and lighter car to tackle the championship. The carmaker took an unassuming family saloon — the Impreza was not unlike your average Corolla — and turned it into a fire-breathing boxer-four turbocharged growling psycho. Known as the Impreza 555 due to its iconic blue and luminous yellow livery, it was the only car in the field with a flat-cylinder engine, emanating a specific and intoxicating bassy bark that immediately drew in scores of fans.

The Impreza WRX's first full WRC season was contested in 1993, with instant success at the infamous Finnish rally. But it wasn't until the late and great McRae that Subaru won its first championship, and kept on winning for three consecutive years before getting another drivers' title in 2001 for Richard Burns, and Petter Solberg in 2003.

The Impreza is now in its third generation, but the second generation model spawned several facelifts, each counting as a specific model. Due to its ungainly looks, Subaru redesigned the car from the affectionately known ‘Bug eye', to the ‘Blob eye' and then the ‘Hawk eye'.

But the first generation is, as these things so often are, of course the best, especially the ultra rare special editions — usually to celebrate success on the rally stages — such as the P1 and the 22B.

Subaru's fairytale lasted all the way up until Citroën's recent success, and last year the global recession forced Fuji Heavy Industries to shift focus from storied motorsport legends, to offshore rigs, tankers, cargo planes, or whatever it is the corporation soullessly churns out.

The Impreza WRX may have left the world's forests for good, but thankfully there's always YouTube, eBay, and the good old PlayStation.

Facts 

Car Subaru Impreza WRX
Production 1992 to present day
Engines 2.0-litre flat four, later grew to 2.5 litres, and always turbocharged
Power Debuted with 240bhp, grew to 260 and then 280 horses, and currently has over 300