Subaru Just Built 'The Quickest and Fastest WRX Ever'

Set for a Goodwood debut, Project Midnight has a carbon fiber body and an engine that revs to 9,500 rpm.

Photo by: Subaru

By: Christopher Smith

Jul 9, 2024 at 12:52pm ET

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Subaru is headed to the Goodwood Festival of Speed with a WRX unlike any other. This very black car is appropriately called Project Midnight, a nod to its full carbon fiber body that drastically reduces weight. Combined with a big horsepower increase under the hood, Subaru claims this is the quickest and fastest WRX race car to come from Subaru Motorsports USA.

Let's start with the engine. It's a 2.0-liter flat-four derived from the company's rallycross team, only this one makes 670 horsepower and 680 pound-feet of torque. The turbocharged/intercooled mill spins to 9,500 rpm, turning all four wheels as a WRX should. It sits in a chassis that's been lightened for racing duty, and as a result, the car weighs 2,469 pounds. That's approximately 1,000 pounds lighter than a production WRX.

Subaru

The carbon fiber body sports all kinds of aero upgrades, too. The fascia features winglets and a massive front spoiler, blending into aggressively flared wheel arches for a widebody look. The rear wing is a significantly modified version of the one used on Subaru USA's rally car. It rides on a custom suspension specifically tuned for tarmac and uses 18-inch wheels with slicks for grip.

If there's something vaguely familiar about this car, you're probably having flashbacks to Subaru's 2020 Gymkhana video with Travis Pastrana. The crew at Vermont SportsCar used that as the inspiration for Project Midnight, but this one isn't designed to get airborne. With rallycross champion and former F1 driver Scott Speed at the wheel, Subaru will send it up the hill at Goodwood and seek out other unspecified records in the months to come.

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“Subaru Motorsports USA and the team at Vermont SportsCar have delivered an absolute beast," said Speed. "When driving the car it clearly has rallycross roots, but the wider tires, track, and geometry give it a very unique feel and incredible grip. The ultimate driving machine; half RX, half sports car – a true joy to drive.

Project Midnight will make its official in-person debut on July 11 at Goodwood.