Just wanted to say thanks to those whom attended the Prodrive Tour yesterday. I thought it was a fascinating event, and never fully realised how much goes into creating any race car, let alone a WRC car. The quality of engineering was astounding and we can only dream of ever having a road car anywhere near as good. After the tour you realise that our cars aren't road going rally cars, nowhere near. What is more realistic is that the Subaru world rally cars aren't really Subaru's at all, there's so little left of the original car it's almost like the name is the biggest part that FHI contribute.

The tour starts with being greeted by Jackie, whom organises these charity events and being shown into a museum area, filled with race cars from various fields of racing, many of which you didn't realise Prodrive's involvement. Obviously there are several Scoobs, including Richards Kenya car One of Colins classics (apparantly he really does have his head up his @r$e), a Rover Metro 6R4 Gp.B, the 1st Legacy Subaru officially rallied, Alain Menu's Mondeo BTCC along with Jamie Thompson's Honda Accord, and Jenson Button's 2003 BAR F1

After a small video presentation (which crashed, several time due to MS Windows ) our host Ben gave us a brief history about the why's and wherefores of Prodrive, and where they are heading as the UK's largest motor manufacturer. Unfortunately, the P2 and the Aston GT race cars were both away having been at either Goodwood or Seibring.

We were then shown into an operating theatre, or so it seemed. The workshops where the parts are crafted for the race machines are cleaner than the Pope's mind, with tiled floors, mirrored stainless steel worktops and the chairs all neatly upturned onto the desks, good boys The first room was where they prepare the wiring looms using military grade components. Hundreds of wires, dozens of connectors, all shaped and wrapped to fit perfectly and work faultlessly in extreme circumstances.

Then we were shown a finished WRC gearbox. The magnesium casing is useless after just 2 races, with a full strip down after the 1st. The ratios are decided and must remain constant throughout the season, with just the final drive ratio changing to suit different rallies. The hydraulic system which still uses an "H" gate as opposed to sequential can change gear in 12ms (IIRC).

On to the engine area where the same block and heads in our cars is fitted with all the uprated parts required to extract a measly 330bhp along with over 600NM of torque As engineers they appreciate that BHP is nothing without torque. It was difficult to appreciate the work involved as a block looks much like another block, but we all know the capabilities in Petters car.

We were then shown into an area where they prep'd the Aston Martin GT race cars. There were two areas each with 2 or 3 part ready cars, and it was amazing to see the radical HV extruded aluminium chassis construction, reminiscent of a B&Q shower cubicle. Something doesn't seem right about a car which is glued together, with tiny pop rivets used to hold things in place just 'til it sets, but it obviously works. They glue aeroplane wings on after all. The brakes were very impressive, being AP Racing with pads over 3/4" thick, and discs over 18" in diameter and 1 1/2" thick.

We then passed through a couple of engineering shops where guys were busily manufacturing various complex and bespoke components from steel and aluminium. The front cross member itself takes a guy an entire day to fabricate just one, and a new one goes on every rally car before every race. It incorporates the front ARB along with mountings for links, hubs, tierods etc.

We then made our way through the shell preparation area, where they acid dip off all the paint from a stripped shell and begin welding in the stregthening, model specific parts and rollcages, before entering the emergency unit where any damaged but repairable cars go. There were a few of Chris Atkinsons cars in here

Then into an area where Gp.N and customer cars are finally readied, although they were covered and Ben assured us that we would be more interested in what's in the next room, so we finally made our way into the shrine.

Finally we were shown into the best room of all, where the race prep'd Subaru WRC cars were. There were 3 in various states of readiness, all propped up on stands with the wheels off. This gave a fantastic opportunity to inspect the chassis and suspension components. I'd sell my spleen to get a set-up like these cars have. Awesome isn't good enough. The hubs, bearings, linkages, front crossmember with integral 28mm ARB, and the brakes, ooh the brakes. Beautiful STi Racing calipers that looked like they could stop a planet. We were able to look inside and inspect the same wiring looms which were being manufactured in the first room, and the engines which look like an atom bomb with festoons of wires billowing from the top. I could have poured over them all day.

All too soon the 3 hours was up, and Ben and Jackie wanted to go home We were shown back into the museum where we grouped for a picture around Richards car, and presented with a complementary Subaru cap. We thanked our hosts for the wonderful insight into another world, one which we all have often dreamed of, but most probably will never enter, and left, happy, smiling and bloody hungry.

A quick trip down the A422 led us to the now closed A43 and a detour which took us all the way back to Prodrives door, after 35 minutes of driving One more mistaken turn and we got onto the Daventry road and finally spotted a pub. The landlord reluctantly agreed to feed us and the recollections of a superb day came flooding out, along with plenty of **** from Martin as usual.

A superb day out, with a superb bunch of guys. I thank you all, and Prodrive, and especially Jackie and Ben for a day I will remember for a very long time.

If the guys with cameras on the day wouldn't mind adding piccy's and of course, your own recollections of the day

 

Great write up

 

er.. wot he said..

Only four points to add...

1. Someone had picked 'that big rock' up from the Japanese stage, transferred it back to HQ and promply stuck as plaque on it.. Big thing too with a nice coating of WR Blue paint...

2. With only 11 of us there... it was definately cosy, unrushed and we did get to linger in some Aladdins caves...

3. We had a nice photo outside the factory...

4. That Daventry road was lovelly.. all bendy and twisty like...

Nice one mate...

 

Excellent review mate, looking forward to the ESC trip now....

 

A very nice day out by the looks of it, shame I missed it...

 

Great review, pity I had to work Maybe next time

 

piccies coming when I fight my way through photobucket...

 

Here we go - in some kind of tour order but you aren't allowed to take pictures everywhere...


Burnsie's Safari car


and again


Legacy rally car and Gp. B Metro 6R4


a 911 (never...)


Jensen's BAR Honda


Aston Martin DB9S or R (Dave'll tell you)


close-up of the glued together structural members (yes - glued - the rivets are there for support whilst the araldite sets )


GRP doors virtually light as a feather


fancy a shoe-horning job?


Hawkeye shell after total strip down from a running car


the welding starts - this is a Gp. N car (see front cross-member)


customer and show car storage (you could feel the bumps but not look )


again from rear - almost ethereal / surreal atmosphere for those who have seen "Coma"


the looms are assembled into the shells


there's a blackjax switch in here somewhere...


"Ere, Helen, come feel my flock(ing)," says Martin


Petter's Germany car in preparation


"This end's the engine" (No offence to Jackie - a petrolhead like the rest of us who's trying to get a turbo fitted to a 2.7 litre hyundai coupe ) Plus, she's a Ponte lass so understood the lingo...


See, they even fit PPP to these!


Just to prove it's his...


Another car's engine - wot no Haynes manual


See, they were expecting Al and I...


We could have done with one of these to get there


Group piccy by Bursie's car (including free hats )


Group piccy outside (even included the non-scoob )


After telling the crowd to take a hike (almost)

A cracking day and I finally got mome at approx 12.45am as Mr. Shell likes hiding his outlets round there - had some good drives through the country finding a few now belonged to Mr. Texaco . Managed to get 27mpg out of the STi on he way home (the 30 mile round trip back to Banbury didn't help the outbound figures... )

WRBlue colour balance goes a bit strange when the piccies are saved as jpegs - they are fine on mine at home...

Andy

 

Top pics Andy. Colours look fine on a laptop screen

 

I've had my monitor, printer and scanner calibrated so it's however photoshop converts them - it's a lovely rich blue on the originals

 

Hi every one very nice pics at prodrive love to go there one day all the best Tony01 with the uk300.

 

Nice wings fitted to these cars anyone got any piccies!!!

Glad you all had a superb day!!

Did any of your members phone me earlier today??

had 2 missed calls from an 01977 no but it was not sticky's no?

 

Tony,

Prodrive were saying that the tours used to be monthly and they had a massive backlog but now they are weekly and it's not too long a wait to get in - might be worth giving them a ring.

When I was sat in reception before the tour, somebody rang up and tried to get a ticket for the open days but they'd closed the bookings this Tuesday and they advised him to go on an evening tour instead.

You could possibly tag along on another tour. AFAIK we paid a lump sum of 300 quid for 15 places, hence 20 quid each and got a free SWRT team cap each at the end I knopw Prodrive won't pay retail price like us but you could think it's almost giving you back 15 quid out of your twenty...

Andy

 

None of the Astons were "finished" to full body shape / panels - these were the insides of the doors (flash or wot but if you can afford to race one... )

 

Dave, Thanks for organising the day, it was a good day out!

Cheers to Mark for driving my car there and back, I've really had enough of driving after doing so many miles this month. .. Think I need a Trackday to get me back into it . . whens the next one

 

Cool pics, looks like barry found his long lost brother?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/09...odrive/P21.jpg

 

Great writeup corradoboy, cracking day out.
Andy_s, when are we doing ours?

 

Good pics Andy Do you, or any of the other snappers have a shot of the front assembly The struts, hubs, links, brakes and front subframe are awesome

 

I've got one or two of the wheel hub and caliper somewhere at home. These and the top mounts are definitely "substantial" - they are shown in the above piccies but as part of a longer shot...

 

Dave, try these three...




'Er indoors got in on the act again...


the depth of field hasn't really covered enough but you can see how the top mounts are machined from solid.

Andy

 

Cheeky git

Just sorting out some of my own piccies, not as good as Apples but what the hell, will post once they're uploaded.

Oh yes, almost forgot, thanks to Simon and Mark for supplying a lift and driving and to Dave for organising and of course to Martin for supplying, well I'm not really sure what you'd call it but it was fecking funny anyway

 

The fumes from all that petrol, fibre glass and carbon mixed with those headache pills I got off killa took their toll on the way home

 

Nice pics too Barry. The museum bit ones are a bit dark but the rest are spot on

 

I'd not clicked looking at the calipers - there's four pads in there so they'll probably have different piston sizes and hence, sequential braking or multi-stage braking. Wonder if the leading two pads are the same material as the trailing two? Also it lets them increase the contact surface area without having a single, large pad per side that would flex and be heavy for moving sharpish when they come off the pedal.

Note the K-type rubbing thermocouple on the disc edge for temp measuring - should have a suitable sized skid-plate on it so that it doesn't get wiped out if they have to reverse... (but they never reverse, only out of service garage etc )

A decent / quick method of changing pads without having to drift through the pins and no anti-rattle springs on this setup...

 

Yeah, wot 'e said

Lovely aren't they

 

Nice pics Barry,
I told you to always read the label..

 

Dear Santa...

Just a pair of these this year, please

 

...and it's about time they updated the sign on the building. It's still in the old font, must be 4 or 5 years out of date.

Hmmm...

I feel a swap coming on

 

Did anyone notice the font on your t-shirts?

 

Good question.