Getting your hands on a desirable new performance car in this day and age isn’t nearly as simple as it should be. A good relationship with your local dealer (read: buy lots of expensive new stock from them) is an absolute must. That’ll put you in good stead to get the all-important phone call inviting you to part with your hard-earned on the flavour of the month. But miss once too often and you’ll be waiting another couple of years for the next opportunity to come along. And so the cycle continues.
Different manufacturers have different excuses for how and/or why they run an allocation system. Porsche’s official line is that it can never build enough GT products to meet demand (whether you believe it or not is another matter), while, further down the food chain, Toyota was forced to cap UK sales of the GR86 to skirt crippling fleet emissions penalties. Sadly, that’s the world we live in these days - but it wasn’t always like that. Japanese carmakers in particular have always been the masters of extending the life of their performance cars, simply adding a new special edition every time their previous one sells out.
No company did it better than Subaru, with this WRX STI Spec C among the most popular in a long (long) line of special Imprezas. See, Subaru had a fair bit to shout about in the late '90s and through most of the '00s, bagging a trio of World Rally Championship titles and, more importantly, winning millions of fans across the world, many of whom were eager for a WRC car to call their very own. Countless rally editions ensued, with Prodrive honouring the three champions it helped carry to their respective titles with their own specials, along with numerous limited-run models crammed full of top-drawer hardware.
The Spec C, however, was the one you really wanted. Whereas most of the Impreza specials gave you more power, more grip, more wing or a mix of everything, the Spec C stripped everything that wasn’t necessary for tearing through forests and lobbed in some snazzy chassis upgrades for good measure. Early models were so basic that they did without the box wing (sacrilege!), but this Hawkeye sits a little closer to the standard car’s silhouette. In fact, the rear wing sits on an aluminium boot lid to save weight, while the metal on the roof is thinner and so too is the glass. Factor in other kit deletions, and you get a hugely impressive 90kg weight saving.
Being a Competition Pack means this particular car should be lighter still. If you hadn’t noticed already, it’s riding on dinky 16-inch steel wheels, which look hilariously lost in the arches, while the interior’s been stripped of the standard STI seats for two functional but immensely basic chairs. There’s no ABS, either, nor do you get electric windows or air con. The point being that Competition Pack cars were, as the name suggests, intended purely to go racing. They’d be bought by rally teams, who’d then strip them of their interiors, fit them with a roll cage and some buckets, and then drive off to the first stage.
The Comp's purpose was to save teams time and money when doing their rally prep, so the fact someone’s kept this example in original condition is as unusual as it is admirable. Like all good Subarus, this one was only offered to the JDM, so a good chunk of the service history will be from its time in Japan. That also means mileage is low at 39,000, and while the asking price of £29,000 doesn’t make it a bargain basement Scooby, it’s far from the most expensive special STIs out there. That mantle goes to the 22B and Spec C Type RA-R, neither of which are represented on the classifieds at the time of writing, but this P1 gets close at £54,991. Doesn’t come with steelies, mind.
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