1992 Subaru Legacy RS Group A Rally Car

Lot details
Registration No: J314PWL
Chassis No: BC5-026913
Mot Expiry: None

This is the car that launched the late Colin McRae MBE on to the world rally stage. In 1989, Subaru approached David Richards of Prodrive to run a World Rally Championship team to promote its new Legacy. Prodrive embarked on an extensive development programme, designing all new suspension, and by 1991 the cars were winning national events. 'The Legacy RS,' says the man who built these cars when new and recently restored this one "was the first out-of-the-box car Subaru produced that made a great rally car."
Prodrive had taken on the up-and-coming McRae in 1991. The young Scot made an immediate impression, winning his debut event and three more rallies on the way to winning the British Rally Championship. In 1992, this car was built up for McRae to defend his title, which he did in emphatic fashion, winning all six rounds to retain the crown, aged just 23. He later provided the Legacy's first WRC win, the 1993 Rally New Zealand, in a sister Prodrive-built car.
At the end of the 1992 season, with the smaller (but no lighter) Impreza in the pipeline, this car was sold into private hands and, via Iceland, Cyprus and Belgium, it returned to the UK, where it is just out of an extensive restoration by Subaru specialist Autosportif, the company set up by Martyn Spurrell when he left Prodrive. The original Prodrive-built bodyshell required new rear floors and rear quarters. The suspension wishbones, uprights and anti-roll bars are original, with rebuilt Bilstein struts, new Eibach springs and new slotted and grooved brake discs, clasped by massive AP Racing four-pot calipers. The engine has been overhauled, run in on the dyno and tested at 304bhp @ 6500rpm and 400lb ft @ 5000rpm. The car has the correct Hewland-designed six-speed non-sequential transmission, driving a locked rear differential, as McRae preferred. The limited-slip differentials in the front and centre of the four-wheel drive transmission are of the correct 'plate' type and not driver-adjustable from the cockpit. New bumpers were sourced, all of the red-anodised aluminium parts - engine-bay catch tanks, dashboard and centre console - have been remade, and the car wears a model-correct Coralba tripmeter. It is liveried exactly as it was in the 1992 season and rides on correct Speedline 7x15in magnesium wheels with new Pirelli tyres.
The car has recently been subject of a major feature in Classic Cars magazine, during the production of which Colin McRae's father Jimmy, himself five-times British Rally Champion, sampled this historic Legacy and said "with a modern transmission, you could win rallies with this."
Steeped in history and with explosive performance, this world-class rally car would make either an important exhibit or an exciting, virtually guaranteed entry at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Rally Stage, where it has already appeared once. A unique opportunity to acquire the actual car in which Britain's greatest rally hero won a major championship, described by his family as "the most significant car of his career", with known history and correctly restored by an acknowledged expert.

Proceeds from the sale will go to the three charities administered by The Jerviswood Trust set up after Colin McRae's tragic and untimely death: Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS); Make-a-Wish; and Bravehearts Childrens Trust.

PLEASE NOTE: H&H APOLOGISE THAT THIS CAR HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN FROM THE SALE ON FEBRUARY 27TH 2008.