Back in the 1980s, Subaru was a small-time Japanese manufacturer selling basic runabouts and commercial vehicles to a largely domestic market. Overseas customers tended to wear tweed jackets and carry shooting sticks, while their idea of fun was a fiddle in a haystack. It was a hardly a recipe for commercial success, and by the end of the decade the company's balance sheet was smothered in red ink.
Competing head on with global giants such as Toyota and Ford looked untenable, so the Subaru management decided to develop a unique brand identity based around flat-four "boxer" engines and all-wheel drive. They even came up with a new slogan: "Active driving, active safety." It was an appealing gimmick, but to maximize its impact, Subaru needed to demonstrate its potential to a world audience. Rallying was an obvious proving ground, which led the company to form an alliance with a little-known British company called Prodrive. Led by David Richards, who won the World Championship as a co-driver in '81, Prodrive had had some success with a Porsche 959 rally raid car and a rally version of the BMW M3.
The tie-up transformed Subaru from the farmer's friend into the lust object of motoring enthusiasts. As a miserable Scot called Colin McRae won first the British and then the World Rally Championships, spotty adolescents took down their Ferrari posters and replaced them with pictures of Imprezas. In Japan and Europe, the original Impreza Turbo 2000 became a cult car and Subaru rocketed into profit.
Subaru's top brass accepted that most of the credit should go to Prodrive and the motorsport industry took note. In the '90s, BMW, Alfa Romeo, Honda, Ford and Volvo asked Prodrive to run their Touring Car teams and the company made off with five British Touring Car titles, with an overall win ratio of 1:3. In 2001, a rich privateer outfit employed them to develop and run a Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello in the FIA GT series and it won two races in its first season. This year, it led its class at Le Mans for the first 13 hours until a mechanical problem forced it into retirement.
Probably the operation's biggest coup though, was the decision by the British American Racing Formula One team to employ Richards and Prodrive in a management capacity. They took over at the end of 2001 and developed a five-year plan to turn the perennial underachievers into championship winners. Coupled with Richard's ISC commitments (see sidebar, page 130), the tie-up makes him arguably the second most powerful man in world motorsports, behind F1-czar Bernie Ecclestone.
The motorsport links have also allowed Prodrive to develop an Automotive Technology division centered on a 240-acre facility in Warwickshire, England. This huge site used to be an American Air Force base during World War II and incorporates a 2.4-mile test track with floodable, low-friction straights, adverse handling circuits, steering pads and extreme off-road tracks.
The Warwick site will be the nerve center for an operation that also has offices in Cologne, Bangkok, Melbourne, Detroit and Irvine. Some of these sites were attained when Prodrive bought Tickford Engineering from Aston Martin last May. Tickford was best known for its powertrain and drivetrain expertise, and the purchase has given Prodrive the resources and expertise needed to expand its consultant divisions.
One of Prodrive Automotive Technology's primary objectives is to assist in the engineering and enhancement of production cars. Many people are aware, for example, that Lotus had a hand in developing the suspension setup of the Aston Martin Vanquish. But it remains a little known fact that Prodrive Badillo in Detroit was responsible for the engine calibration. The Tickford operation can also count the Ford XR8 Australian truck and the UK-only Ford Racing Puma among an impressive list of accomplishments.
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