Subaru’s “Project Midnight” to Terrorize the Duke’s Driveway

No question, Subaru has got it in for the Duke of Richmond’s driveway. The perennial location of the Goodwood Festival of Speed in southern England has been in Subaru’s crosshairs for years, most famously with Travis Pastrana’s Subaru Family Huckster, an absurdly modified 1983 GL wagon with carbon-fiber body panels, deployable wings, and a Subaru flat-four boosted to within a psi of its life at 862 horsepower.

For 2024, Subaru will double-gun the event with another FrankenSubaru called Project Midnight to be driven by ex-F1, ex-Indy, ex-NASCAR, ex-Formula E, and rallycross pilot Scott Speed. Said to be the lightest and fastest WRX that Subaru Motorsports USA has ever built, Midnight is a 2024 WRX with a flared body of all-carbon panels and a 747 Jumboliner’s worth of rear wing. A 9500-rpm 2.0-liter flat-four makes 670 horses and 680 pound-feet of torque while spittling flame from its exhaust that exits directly from the hood. In the basement, a suspension optimized for the Duke’s paved driveway is capped by 18 x 11-inch OZ Racing Superturimso LMP magnesium wheels and Yokohama ADVAN slicks, sized 280/65.

Built by Subaru Motorsports USA at Vermont SportsCar, Project Midnight is based on the 862-hp “Airslayer,” a 2020 WRX STI modified for Gymkhana events. However, at “well under 2500 pounds,” according to Subaru, Project Midnight is 300 pounds lighter than Airslayer and about 1000 pounds lighter than a stock WRX. As Colin Chapman proved so long ago, it’s all about weight.

Midnight has a high bar to clear; Pastrana finished second last year in the clapped-out Huckster, recording a time of 46.37 seconds up the 1.16-mile driveway with an average speed of 130 mph, beaten only by the space-tech McLaren Solus GT, which was about a second quicker. Goodwood’s top ten is usually filled by a roster of mega-dollar exotics, making Subaru something of the everyman’s scamp interloper at this highbrow event.

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