High Smileage Club: Subaru Impreza P1

The Subaru P1 is filled to the brim with aspects and characteristics that elevate it beyond the classic and damn near close to exotic status. Bear with us on this.

To begin with, its origin story is a delight. The P1 exists because Subaru didn’t like the number of hot, special edition, grey-import Imprezas arriving on UK shores in the late '90s. Tuners and Japanese importers had spotted the array of special-edition Imprezas offered to customers in the Land of the Rising Sun and started to pluck them from domestic auctions and export them to the UK. 

The smart ‘grey’ importers loaned the cars to the then-new evo magazine, which was championing the dynamic ability of these three-door Imprezas to a rabid audience, and suddenly everyone wanted one. 

For Subaru, this was simply missed sale territory. Sure, you could buy a four-door Impreza Turbo from a dealer, but why would you when for similar money you could buy something as sharp as a samurai sword from a reputable importer?

So, in response to this, Subaru appointed rally preparation gurus Prodrive to engineer an Impreza just for the UK market. A kind of a two-finger response which, don’t forget, is why Mr Lamborghini started making Lamborghinis.

Next up, the two Macs – McLaren and McRae. This is where the P1, in our eyes, becomes exotic. Colin McRae drove Imprezas in World Rallying. He drove them with such heartstopping flair that he became a giant of motor sport – equal to Schumacher and, dare we say it, Senna.

Images and video of him flinging blue Imprezas into crests and hairpins made people throughout the world want to a) drive like him and b) to own a blue Impreza – including this writer. The P1 tapped into this McCraze, elevating it above pretty much all other Impreza bar the ultra-limited 22B.

McLaren? Well, Prodrive wanted to reduce the drag of the standard car and add some visual aggression, so they knocked on Peter Stevens’ door – the designer of the McLaren F1. His styling tweaks were oh-so perfect – bringing a degree of class of cohesion to the silhouette that the Japanese import cars lacked. Oh - if you attend a Scramble, Peter is often here hanging out with his buddies at The Road Rat, based in the Parachute Store. He’s a lovely chap, and always good for a story.

There’s more to the P1, too. It delivered its sheer cross-country performance not through blunt horsepower, indeed with 277bhp it wasn’t endowed with big bhp. No, it delivered its performance by gliding over the road in a manner that had you believe there was a Landspeeder-like cushion of air beneath you – not a set of low-profile tyres.

Suspension and set-up wizardry from Prodrive is what did the trick, giving you an incredibly stable and yet adjustable and agile platform on which to wind everything up to maximum attack and, crucially, stay there. Which brings us to the reason we’re writing about it – that on any road and in any conditions you’ll struggle to find a car that can match its abilities (or sheer pace).

Oh - and rarity too. Subaru planned 500; it built 1000 and it’s thought that less than a quarter are still registered on UK roads. You’ve got more chance spotting a Lamborghini Huracán than a P1.

So there you have it. The Subaru P1. Great story, great engineering, great performance; great, great car.

You'll find a Subaru Impreza P1 as part of the High Smileage Club at the Scramble on Sunday 7 January.