Subaru WRX STI APR Wide Body - Import Tuner Magazine

APR's signature flame red paint scheme has become synonymous with jaw dropping import creations, and most of these wild whips are unveiled at the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas. APR got the party started in 2002 with its GT-300 Toyota Celica (2NR cover car May, 2003), followed that up with the S-GT turbo MR-2 Spyder in 2003 (2NR cover car September, 2004), and then departed from the Toyota ranks with the highly impressive EVIL-R Mitsubishi Evolution at the 2004 show. For its 2005 SEMA booth, APR stayed with the all-wheel drive, turbo-four platform, electing to go fully horizontal and transform the venerable Subaru WRX STi and its boxer engine rated at 300 hp and 300 lb-ft of torque right off the showroom floor.

APR Performance is a leading edge American-based body tuning company that produces everything from canards to side mirrors to full-tilt, wide-body aero kits. While this SEMA hot rod is used to develop the company's arsenal of body tuning weaponry, APR cars are usually multidimensional creations with an abundance of power adders and suspension enhancements.

The STI exposed here has been dressed to thrill in the most severe way, receiving a full wide-body makeover via APR's wild SS/GT kit. The crew at APR unleashed all its creative juices and developed an aggressive front bumper treatment and accompanying wide-body front fenders. The challenge of going full wide body on a four-door application is the rear doors. In most cases, the outer edges of the rear door must be integrated into the design and APR pulls this off to perfection. Both fender treatments add 80mm to the overall width of the STI, which brings us to the performance benefit of APR wide body packages-maximum contact patch. The kit allows traction-lusting Suba-philes to tuck 18x11 aluminum and 295-series rubber under their rides. The APR STi runs a slightly more conservative tandem of 18x10 Racing Hart CP-S10's and 285/30/18 Michelin Pilot Sport Cups.

The remainder of the body tuning program consists of a front carbon-fiber wind splitter, front carbon-fiber undertray, carbon-fiber canards, side skirts, carbon-fiber side splitter, Formula GT carbon-fiber side mirrors, wide-body drag reduction rear bumper, carbon-fiber rear diffuser and a GTC-300 carbon-fiber wing that spans an impressive 67 inches. The red paint scheme features chrome graphics from Vinyl Mayhem that coordinates well with the satin finish of the Racing Hart wheels.

Cracking open the Seibon carbon fiber hood reveals a retina-piercing EJ25 flat-four, fortified with a grip of HKS hard parts. The EJ's stock top-mount chiller has been ditched in favor of an HKS front-mount set-up accented with an HKS SSQ blow-off valve. The restrictive downpipe was tossed in lieu of an HKS unit followed up by an HKS Carbon-Ti exhaust system. SP Engineering handled installation of the turbo system upgrades and the EJ20's dress-up regime.