WR Prodrive
 

My WR Prodrive, just had the paintwork refreshed by Greg Howell at Southam Bodies.

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I bought this car in 2000.It was the first and only car i have ever purchased new.I was about 30 years old and
was looking for something more sensible but just as fun as the 16 Valve 1990 Lancia Integrale i had been driving for the last few years
and had been costing me a fortune in running costs at John Whalley's as well as having a dislike of rain (it was always 50/50 whether it would start after heavy rain).

I started reading about the Impreza in Performance Car magazine and at the time it had been getting outstanding reviews for about 3 years.
The other enticing factor was that it seemed to win the 'JD Power survey' each year in two categories- customer satisfaction and reliability.

The former was important to me.I had excellent,albeit expensive service at the Lancia specialists John Whalleys for a number of years.
I don't blame the garage for the price of keeping the car in good shape,i blame the design and also the fact i was in my twenties and drove it in a spirited fashion.

The problem was John Whalleys is a 3hr return journey for me so when i started looking at new car options i wanted to find a main dealer i would be treated well at but was a bit more local.

Before going to Subaru i went around the corner to a Mitsubishi main dealer in Putney and asked for a test drive in a Lancer.They basically laughed at me and intimated i would not be able to afford the car so it was with some trepidation that i walked into Cheam Motors and asked to test drive a Subaru Impreza Turbo.They could not have been more helpful and sent me out in one on my own and told me to take my time.
The car was OK,but frankly after my Integrale which was running a motorsport chip and putting out around 260bhp the Scooby seemed a little breathless.It was also understeering on the limit instead of the oversteer i was used to in the Integrale.

Apart from these issues i was impressed with the feel of the car and the balance.It felt right.When i got back to the garage i mentioned what i perceived to be the cars shortcomings to the salesman and he showed me a Prodrive catalogue and told me the two issues i had mentioned could be resolved with a Prodrive Performance Package and a Prodrive Tarmac Rally suspension upgrade.
The problem was,i had started getting carried away reading the catalogue and the salesmans enthusiasm coupled with my own resulted in me ordering a new Impreza Turbo which would be sent from Subaru UK straight to Prodrive where it would be upgraded to WR Sport spec.This was-
Prodrive Performance Package (ECU upgrade,Intercooler pipe,De-cat stainless steel exhaust)
Quick Shift
Prodrive Tarmac Rally spec suspension (Bilstein to Prodrives unique spec)
Colour coded body and fabulously chavtastic rear wing.
17 inch Prodrive Alloys (gold of course).

I also left air con off the spec list as the salesman told me it weighed 70kg and sapped a little power and in my mind that was sacrilege.
Nowadays i regret that decision sometimes but back in the day i was only interested in performance and handling.

For those of you unclear about the PPP on this model it takes the car from a base 212 bhp (iirc) to around 240bhp and 0-60 from 5.55s to 5.19s

The other Prodrive upgrade that to this day i think was one of the best options ever was the standard fog lights were changed into 120 watt PIAA driving lamps from their rally range.In the real world these monsters lit up country lanes in the dark as if it was daylight but also when flashed at someone hogging Lane 3 were so bright i think they induced nervousness from the hogger that the vehicle flashing was a police car.I only suspect this because a single flash was all it ever took for drivers to move into L2 immediately.

It felt like a long time waiting for the vehicle and when i finally picked it up i was over the moon.As i was about to drive away,and the sales man had gone back into the dealership a mechanic in overalls darted out of the garage.

He asked me if i was going to be servicing the car with him at the dealership.When i told him i was he said that he had to be careful as they were not supposed to recommend non-prodrive equipment but that in his opinion the De-Cat of the rear cat by Prodrive only went halfway to freeing up the breathing of the car.He told me that a company called Scooby Sport in Essex could supply a downpipe to delete the front Cat too.He then advised me to buy one,get it delivered and if i brought it down to the dealership he would fit it after the car was run in for its first oil change service.
When i asked what i could expect powerwise he told me it felt to him like about 10% more peak power but that the main difference was the lack of lag and it felt like the car could just breathe easier and spin the turbo up quicker.

Of course,i went straight home and ordered one and after he fitted it (i never told the salesman the mechanic had suggested it,instead saying i had found the company on my own LOL) it was clear it unleashed another enormous piece of torque on the already very torquey motor in comparison to the standard UK Turbo.

Torque from the PPP was already up to 350Nm at 3500 rpm from standard which was 290Nm at 4000 rpm.


In 2009 Cheam Motors the supplying main dealer closed down.It was always serviced by them as per the service schedule with fully synthetic oil.It never did more than 3000 miles between changes and has never needed a drop of oil between services.

It has also never,not once,ever broken down or not started in any way.A welcome change after the Intergrale and proves the JD Power survey that enticed me into buying the car originally was correct.

Looks brilliant :thumb:

Cheers Lewis!

When Cheam Motors was closing they contacted me to let me know and advised me to start servicing the car with their competitors,Bell and Colville.
I took the car for it's annual service there in 2010 and met Ken Paterson who is their Subaru expert in the servicing department.Ken seems to have been around these cars since the beginning.I immediately felt very comfortable having him take over the responsibility of looking after the car as he seemed to be a genuine enthusiast and also knew exactly what the WR Sport was and seemed enthusiastic about the car.

Ken has been looking after the car ever since and it still hasn't ever broken down or used a drop of oil between services.

A great history!

Great write-up!

looking good, what did Greg do with the car

Lovely car and good to see you've owned from new. Your a lucky man.
Shame on the Mitsubishi garage ;) I hate when people perceive that because your young or are dressed like a tramp(that's me lol) that you don't have money. Their loss

didn't you sell this car in 2013 ?

https://www.scoobynet.com/subaru-444...-prodrive.html

To a family member ; from reading the previous advert, trolling aside, I get the impression that the OP was very attached to his car, and not in any hurry to sell. It, as now, was an excellent advert of an unmolested example.

Hi Elglassi,

After i put the advert up i got very cold feet and the car went to live at my sisters who lives in the same street as me on the understanding i could have it back as soon as she needed something bigger. Part of the deal was she continued to service it with Ken and Bell and Colville which i co-ordinated.

So it was never far away from me and when she decided to move into a Volvo Estate to fit her childs bike in the boot the car came back to me earlier this year which was when i decided to commission the paint refresh at Greg Howells.

Thanks Hedgecutter, you're absolutlely right about how i felt and still feel about the car. Thanks for the kind words about my Scooby.

I got to know Greg when he was recommended to me.
After a lot of research i learned he was
well known on the VW show scene before moving onto Audi's and then again to Porsche.

He did a brilliant job on my Audi and while up at his place i got a feel for the first class restoration work he does on
Porsche and his attention to detail and passion for the job.

I decided the Scooby needed some body work love after being a London car it's whole life - people seem to find their place
in a parking spot by bumping into the car infront and behind.So the bumpers needed refreshing and lots of little
stone chips and general wear and tear of 17 years use needed attention.

Greg advised me against doing a full respray at this stage as he said the paint was pretty good and he made a very
important comment- "If you end up spraying the whole car you will feel it is too precious to drive it or park it anywhere".

As this car is my daily when the weather isn't great or i have to park somewhere a bit dodgy i didnt want to start seeing the
car as something that i didn't want to drive so i stuck with his advise on what to do which was

New Bumpers sourced from Subaru (the old bumpers had been blown over a couple of times by the main dealer as a tidy up and Greg wasn't happy with the quality of primer used and advised me to start again if i didn't want his paint lifting in a couple of years time).Looking at the way the previus paint was cracking and lifting from car park dings it was a good call).

Lift dents and car park dings around the whole car

Touch in stone chips

Paint roof

Refurbish wheels

Mop and polish.


I am very pleased with the job he did

Very nice :thumb:

I hate it when you walk into a car dealers and they have the nerve to laugh at you. Who are they to know what financial state the buyer is in. Disgusting from them I think.

Something that Ken at Ben & Colville had advised me to do when he took over with the car was to pay for him to waxoyl it as told me it was at the age where if i didn't give it attention it would start to rust, so i let him do it a few years ago. I then asked him to apply waxoyl again a couple of years later. When i asked Greg to assess it for rust and deal with any he couldn't find any which was a real relief. I am very glad i listened to Ken.

True Matty. The difference between the Mitsubishi Dealer and Subaru Dealer (Cheam Motors) was night and day. Cheam could not have been more welcoming.

Cheers John.

Beautiful car buddy and a great story behind it
It's a keeper glad you got it back

Very nice write up and story fella. I believe Ive seen your car once or twice when ive been at Cheam Motors and again at Bell and Colvill in the past.

Thanks Matt, nice one.

Thanks Raggy

Here's another shout out for Ken at Bell & Colvill. I met Ken in 2008 (?, or 2009) at the Richard Burns memorial rally at RAF Marham, when I'd not had my RB5 long. I was based at RAF Odiham, so it wasn't that far to get to the West Horsley. He's been looking after it ever since.

When I bought the new one, I was going to buy from them, but had a bad experience with one of the sales blokes, so bought from John at Mangoletsi. They both still go to Bell & Colvill to get serviced, and Ken looks after them.

Love a classic (although the new one is pretty good as well).

:cool: just reading a article on piston heads and saw your post looks like a tidy example :thumb:

That looks fantastic, I don't think they've ever improved on the classic shape with some PFF7's.


If that's 2000 model I'm guessing it's Deep Blue Mica (not dark blue mica), I had a wagon that colour and it really takes a good wax.


It's also the year that they came with a slight change to the map in the ECU, and getting a hold of a 99 ECU was a good idea. I got John Banks (not sure if he's still on here) to change mine over. I didn't have the cash to do an Ecutek map at the time.


I also had a wrapped decat DP, and the Scoobysport BB. Lovely sound too, just right, nice burble, not too intrusive :D

I posted on PH about this too...I was under the impression all the WR Sports had the upgraded clocks with the WR Sport script on it, which is missing here. I think this just has the Prodrive upgrades fitted rather than being a true WR Sport.

Not to take anything away from a lovely car OP :thumb:

Great car and back story. Here's hoping you get another 20 years from it!

Another one for Ken here as well, in fact my scoob will be with him in 2 weeks :thumb:

UPDATE

Where to start.....

I noticed in the Autumn last year that one of the rear shocks was banging over bumps. It was the near side.
Having done a fair bit of research over the years on my car, and how rare they were getting i already knew
this was going to be a problem from posts i had read on the scooby forum.

This issue is that i had specced the car with the Prodrive tarmac rally spec WR suspension package. This was
one of the best decisions i had made, because it transformed the standard impreza Turbo default setting which is understeer on the limit, into a weapon which oversteered when the limit was crossed. To be fair i can count the number of times it has broken grip on one hand, because the car really is planted. However, the other byproduct of the decision was the most compliant, yet sporty suspension set up i have driven.
The Bilstein derived prodrive suspension really instilled confidence on any UK roads, but really shines on bumpy damp B roads.

Anyway, this suspension was now unavailable. I phoned Prodrive but although helpful to an extent they were quite matter of fact telling me they no longer supported Subaru and had moved onto other things. They could not advise me where i could find any spares.

I devoured threads on the forums, trying to decide whether to put on some coil overs. The problem was that no one *really* gave any of the coil overs great reviews on the road. People seemed to like them on track, but the very place where my car excelled, UK 'B' roads, i seemed to read nothing but negativity regarding all the different brands of coil overs.

I am also aware that the WR Prodrive Bilstein package was a really important part of my cars reputation and potential value.

I phoned many different Subaru suspension independent specialists and none really seemed confident on fitting something that would rival the Bilsteins, which they all knew about. When i said i wanted something progressive and compliant for B road blasting none really seemed prepared to commit.

It was at this point the MOT on the car was running out, so i decided to take the car to the fantastic Ken Paterson at Bell & Colville and try to reach some sort of plan with him.

Ken tried to find a NS WR Bilstein shock on the second hand market but failed to do so. He was loathe to remove the shock and send it to Bilstein for refreshing because my car would take up well needed space in the workshop, and apparently refreshes at Bilstein can be somewhat longer than the quoted times.

After much head scratching, i managed, by chance to find a chap who had worked at Prodrive, and was one of the people involved in the design and development of the WR Prodrive Bilstein suspension package.

I had a long and fruitful conversation with him and he who gave me different options, within different budget ranges to sort out the issue. I have chosen to take the most thorough route-

Ken at Bell and Colville has removed the whole Bilstein suspension package and is sending it to Bilstein. My ex-Prodrive contact is project managing the refresh/rebuild of the whole package with the service department at Bilstein on my behalf to make sure the unique set up is reworked to its original specification.

This will take some time, so i have decided to keep the car on the road by having Bell & Colville fit a set of 'Pedders' replacement suspension for the Classic Impreza. This kit is reasonably cost effective and has had good reviews on the forums from people who feel it is less 'crashy' and stiff than coil overs. The Pedders kit will stay installed for a a good few months while Bilstein bring back the originals to new specification.

This route is certainly the most expensive one to take, and there were many other routes available (the most cost effective would have been installing a secondhand OE Impreza turbo shock on the NSR of the car and having Bilstein only refresh the shock that was broken).

The reason i have taken the expensive option is primarily because this suspension is unique, and it is now 18 years old. I feel only refreshing one corner would have been, how can i put this, cutting corners......

Secondarily, i want to enjoy the car for the next few months. I have kept it so i can enjoy it, so driving it gingerly around with a OE shock on one corner, and Bisteins on the other three corners is not why i have kept the car. By the same token, taking the car off the road for a few months while waiting for Bilstein to complete the work was another option i did not want to take. As it is, putting the Pedders kit on the car means i can continue to enjoy it while waiting for Bilstein to work their magic.


On other news, the car was due a 7500 mile service (although it only covered 1500 miles last year...) After much discussion with Ken, with us both studying the service history, we felt that it was time to change the cambelt. This was depsite the fact that i have got nowhere near the recommend mileage since the last change which was in 2010 at 52,619 miles.

The car has now covered 67,585 miles and while the cambelt was being changed the hydraulic tensioner belt and alternator belt were also changed. A new battery was fitted.

The car never drinks any oil between services (it has never needed a top up) and has had another 4.5 litres of Valvoline Xtreme added, which is what Bell & Colville recommend nowadays. It has never had any mineral oil from the first service, always fully synthetic.

I also asked Ken to have the technician carry out the wax underbody treatment we do every year on it.

The car passed its MOT with flying colours and it was time to pay the bill.

The cost of my choices to keep an old Subaru in tip top condition was in excess of what one can buy old Impreza Turbo Classic for these days.
But, it is a labour of love and while paymment was painful, within 2 miles of leaving the garage as i boosted through the back lanes of East Horley, through Ockham, towards Ripley then opened it up on the A3 slip road i realised it is worth it. There are very few cars that make your b*ollocks tingle like a Classic Impreza on full boost through the bends.

Was it Peter Cambridge who helped out, ex Prodrive and Bilstein? He aligned my spec C, really nice guy.
Funnily enough, I was considering buying some hatch specC shocks just incase they aren't around in a few years.
You should charge B and C for those photos ; it makes them look how Subaru dealers should look, with a class car outside! !