Top Gear Prodrive P2
Top Gear tries out the Prodrive P2, Prodrive’s first entirely self-developed car using a Subaru Impreza turbocharged flat-four engine. The Prodrive P2 went from concept to a full working model in only 9 months. It’s a 2 seater, and features all wheel drive. The boxer engine gives it good power figures of 349PS and 575Nm of torque for a 1100kg car. And something I didn’t know, the Prodrive P2 was actually based on the Subaru R1 chassis. Check the video out after the jump! Click here to read the rest of Top Gear Prodrive P2
Fuji Heavy Industries has just won a contract to supply high-speed chase cars for the Gerdarmerie Nationale police of France. Fuju Heavy Industries who manufactures Subaru cars, will supply 63 Subaru Impreza WRX cars to replace the “rapid interventio bridge” department’s existing Peugeot 306 S16 and Renault Megane Coupe high-speed chase cars. These cars could only go to a maximum of 190 km/h, but the new Subaru Impreza WRX can touch over 240 km/h, allowing the police force to keep up in the most high-paced chases where the driver of the vehicle has to be stopped immediately. 
While Subaru has decided to use Toyota hybrid technology in it’s efforts to improve fuel economy for it’s petrol-powered vehicles, it has decided to develop it’s own turbodiesel engine to address demands for diesel cars in markets like Europe.
Motor Image, a Tan Chong International Ltd company based in Singapore will be building Subaru Impreza rally cars together with Prodrive UK, the company behind the Subaru Rally Team. The rally cars will be produced at a new USD$15.4 million production facility in Singapore. They will be Group N vehicles, which are basically production vehicles but fitted with safety equipment incompliance with FIA’s rules and regulations for Group N rally cars. This will probably be Singapore’s first venture into the automotive industry. Production will begin at a rate of about 5 cars a month, and might increase to 15 in the near future.
Since Toyota’s 8.7% stake purchase in Fuji Heavy Industries which makes Subaru cars, there has been on-going talks on the usage of Toyota’s hybrid engines in Subaru cars. But this proved to be difficult due to Subaru’s unique symmetrical all-wheel-drive drivetrain which could not be mounted to the engine easily.
