Back in 1992, when MotorMartin was a much younger man, i travelled up to the Isles of Man on my Honda XBR500 to watch Steve Hislop and Carl Fogarty’s epic battles around the island course. What a week that was as Hislop’s white Norton swapped places with Fogarty’s red Yamaha many, many times over the two Superbike races. What a pair of racers, what a track. For anyone that has not sampled the delights of the Mountain course on the Isle of Man, MotorMartin urges you to take the short trip across the Irish Sea at least once. You won’t regret it.
Subaru of America, Inc. clearly agree as they have announced today to MotorMartin that they will make another record attempt on the Isle of Man TT Course with rally driver Mark Higgins. Higgins will drive an all-new 2016 Subaru WRX STI time attack car that was jointly developed by Subaru of America, Inc., and Prodrive, with technical assistance provided by Subaru Tecnica International (STI). The new car is purpose built for the Isle of Man TT Course and looks absolutely amazing.
“We are excited to be back and running on the Isle of Man TT course,” said Dominick Infante, National Manager of Product Communications, Subaru of America to MotorMartin. “This is one of the most amazing road courses in the world and the Isle of Man TT is one of the most exciting races of the year. We have previously run the TT Course in near-stock Subaru WRX STIs, but this year we set out to design the ultimate WRX STI for this circuit.”
For 2016, Subaru of America decided to create a purpose built car that could tackle the arduous TT Course, which is similar in style to both the Nürburgring Nordschleife and Le Mans in the demands it puts on suspension and engines. It called upon the joint expertise of Prodrive for the design and build, and Subaru Technica International for technical assistance. Both have an extensive history in building and designing winning cars. Prodrive and Subaru have won three World Rally Championship Manufacturer titles together and three World Rally Championship driver titles. Prodrive also has experience running team Aston Martin in the FIA World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24-Hour race. STI has experience designing great road course cars, designing the class-winning 2015 Nürburgring 24-Hour Race winner.
In 2014, Subaru broke its own previous lap record around the fabled 37-mile course, with an average lap speed of 117.51mph and a time of 19 minutes and 15 seconds. The previous record of 115.36mph was set in 2011 in a WRX STI. Watch the short film below from Subaru’s own YouTube channel to get a true understanding of some of the difficulties and dangers of a flying lap around the full TT circuit.
For more information about the Subaru WRX STI visit www.subaru.co.uk. Or try http://www.nathanielcars.co.uk/new-cars/subaru/ for a great deal.
It’s endeavours like this that mark out Subaru as a bold company with absolute confidence in their own products and that is most definitely deserving of a MotorMartin well done.
Where will you go?