Cars can end up being major pieces of history for a great many reasons. Rarely though do they become so because of their pilot. In the case of the Subaru Impreza, it owes much of its notoriety to one man, the late Colin McRae. Now, a very small company is building a tribute car that honors both the car and its driver and it might be worth every bit of its $448,990 (£370,000) asking price.
The car in question is the Best Impreza Colin McRae Edition, of which only eight in total will be built. It’s a loving tribute both to the Impreza 555 of Group A rally but also to McRae himself. Before we dive into the details it’s important to consider just how Evo was able to test the car.
Instead of simply hopping into the modernized and modified Subaru, Adam Towler, Deputy Editor of Evo, first had a chance to ride in and then drive an actual Subaru Impreza Turbo 555 Group A rally car. It’s rare to have such a chance but rarer still that a company claiming to build a tribute car like the Colin McRae Edition would put a reviewer in the actual car that they’re trying to emulate.
Read More: Chris Harris Drives Colin McRae’s Championship-Winning 1995 Subaru Impreza 555
That one simple fact says a lot about how confident Carlo Boroli, the boss at Best Engineering, is in his creation. As a longtime Subaru and rally enthusiast, he wanted a way to honor the 555 and McRae at the same time. This car is his solution and he plans to build one for each of McRae’s wins (seven) and then an eighth as a tribute to the overall win in the 1995 WRC championship.
The experience behind the wheel sounds like everything anyone could ever ask for. It’s sharper than the original, there’s more grip, and the ride quality is, to put it in Towler’s words, vastly more sophisticated. It hasn’t lost that 555 feeling in the process of performance improvements, though.
Boroli’s team spent six days at the dyno to get the sound of the exhaust as close to the original 555 as possible without sacrificing performance. It’s so close to that car that the McRae family itself has given the project its blessing. What a tribute to man and machine.
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