Wow 🤩 we finally get to drive the Subaru s5 99 WRC after its restoration. Full road video coming soon as over 30 mins of driving!
So welcome to challenge the road we’re here at beerwater we’ve got the s599 wrc subaru and the subaru 22b so i know you’ve all been waiting a while for me to get the subaru rally car on the road it’s actually been eight years since it’s been prepared for me by stuart hall at nortel motorsport i’ve taken it out now sort of enjoyed it it’s actually quite terrifying
To drive i think i thought it would be really easy but actually it just takes times with the gears and also when i went out there was so much traffic on the road and this doesn’t like going slowly on the other hand we’ve got the 22b one of my favorite all-time cars you know i really really enjoy driving this i think that since we’ve had the tyre technology as
Well move on with the four s’s it does drive really well but it’s totally different to the wrc so today i just went out in the wrc we’ve got a video on the 22b that you can watch the wrc today was honestly i felt actually quite ill it gave me butterflies in my stomach because it’s so raw not sure you’re going to hear me today but we’re out in the world rally car
And it’s scary to tell the truth very scary i’m not sure if i better talk i just want to concentrate on driving to tell the truth you just come with me for the ride this is fourth gear up the hill that’s gotta hope that quick mirror is in a good position this is a tough junction so you can feel what it’s like now to drive a wild rally car on the road pretty
Scary and i can’t see so i’m gonna have to try and use this back mirror so it’s one thing you gotta check that your mirrors are working it’s just a case of that was bloody scary because i couldn’t really see oh my god the steering’s just electric i can’t so let’s just get some warmth in this car tell the truth i’m crapping my pants at the moment because it’s
A big difference between this and the lancia this is a whole lot more serious and i need to be serious with it this car’s not for messing around and obviously being left-hand drive as well even though i’m getting more used to that with the lancia so it makes me feel a little bit sick to be fair because obviously this car wants to go just a 100 all the time so
I’ve never felt steering like this on a car it’s just my new turns turns like a quarter of an inch and it turns everything it’s a bit weird not using the clutch but i think you just get used to it and that’s what you want someone going five mile an hour i’m not gonna anyway too much from here honestly i need to lay down already this is ridiculous it just feels
All wrong driving it on the road it doesn’t feel quick it’s just the sensations and the noise just give you butterflies and i hate coming to junctions because this clutch is just like on or off i’ve got to decide which way to go now it just needs to get warm the whole gearbox and everything it’s an incredible experience i’m not going to say i’m loving it i’ll
Just say it’s an honor to take this car out really but this is the problem going slowly you feel like yeah young little boy there thumbs up there you go no one will probably think it’s a rally car anyway but he’s just trying to get used to it just trying to get used to the gears and everything what i’ll do is i think i’m gonna try and go oh don’t come up here
I’m gonna try and go try and go right yeah jesus christ people who say oh yeah you just take a rally car go down the pub and come back yeah yeah yeah yeah so i’ve been out in the wrc today pretty incredible um did i must admit quite sort of terrifying on the road because you’re going so slowly and this car just wants to go 100 all the time also maybe the seating
Position wasn’t quite for me maybe a little bit too far forward but yeah the experience is pretty incredible and the whining noise from the car makes you sound like the old footage of richard burns it’s colin mcrae in that era first thing i noticed on it was the clutch the clutch is very on and off and you’re almost sort of bunny hopping a little bit down
The road to get going but once you’re off it’s fine gearbox don’t have to use the clutch that again takes just a little bit of time to get used to but it does feel lovely going through the gears but very very close ratio sometimes third i went to first and go to third i went to fifth so it’s just going to take time to get used to it i think would i use it on the
Road much maybe not you’ll see from the footage it takes a lot of concentration to drive a rally car on the road mainly because it takes so much time to get the car warm i actually felt better coming here after i’d done the footage and drove down the car felt easier and better to drive but again when you’re going slowly it just feels you know you’re hearing all
The diffs which you hear on the video the wine from the gear box probably should have worn the headphones so let’s go through the history of this car because you’re going to see some of the footage but it’s an s599 manual gear change they changed the sequential later on in the 99 and 2000 cars but they made 22 of these 99 cars and this is chassis 21. it’s actually
Owned by a famous russian cyclist they put it out russia actually sponsored him to go out in the car to try and be a rally driver and he done quite a lot of events in this i think he’d done two or three years in in wrc in different events didn’t quite get there but that was the history of the car and then it went off to to ireland where it was transferred to
Right hand drive then i took it back to left hand drive and made it one of the most original cars out there actually um obviously a lot of the cars were crashed and damaged during the time but this one now is absolutely on the button we think it was used by richard burns as a test car most of them were test cars even before they were sold we found out which really
Helped us with provenance and value and maybe cancun would have driven the car too as a test car difference is 22b and this yeah actually 22b has actually got a bigger rear spoiler this is lower one of the main things is the engine sits really low in this this s5 version super low right down where as you see on the 22b it’s very high and that’s just to give it
That center of weight and that’s why it was so agile the other differences i found today was just the noise it’s so loud in there you’re probably seeing the footage whether you can hear me a lot i don’t know but it’s just so loud out there huge difference on the wrc cars the amount of carbons there’s all carbon in here but these cars had weight limits so a lot
Of the time they would have steel arches quite heavy on the bonnet and that to get the car up to weight so you can see all the carbon in the doors in here on the front handbrake the other thing with the co-drive we had a nice 5110 nokia that’s still in here which is quite nice anyone remember these phones great signal great battery life probably better than the
Latest iphone but yeah it’s totally stripped out in here and you just hear and feel everything pedals are amazing as well really top quality there but there’s wires and everything in here even in the back it’s just wires batteries ecu’s two fire extinguishers hopefully i won’t need those but yeah this co-driver as well sits really low down and when i took little
Riley for a ride after the buell show he couldn’t even see out that’s how low he’s sitting in there but yeah it’s quite amazing to to be able to to bring you these cars and show you what they’re like inside we’ll see manual gearbox we like that i’ll just say it’s a sequential so you don’t use the clutch on the way up all the way down but yes a beautiful interior
Sparco seats pro drive absolutely lovely so we spoke about the engine let’s have a look so it sits really low down like we said before air filter coming in here but there’s so many wires and it must be amazing to work on there’s quite a bit of room here compared to the 22b but you can see it’s quite tight down in here but in the day they would probably change
The gearbox and all that in 20 minutes for different rallies but i say the main difference is it sits so low down for that center of gravity on there again lots of carbon carbon air box yeah it’s um it’s pretty immense car this and i do enjoy just looking at all the details so in conclusion to the video 22b it’s a fantastic road car the wrc you can use on the road
But i think it’s only very special occasions and i feel like i need a maybe a a rally crew with me but it’s been an awesome day awesome to drive this i’m going to take it back home now and the 22b is still the legend it was i know the values have gone high and it’s difficult for people to understand them but it is a very limited car very few cars look like a rally
Car like this and i’m you know amazingly proud to own both of them please like and subscribe to our channel we’ve got lots more coming soon we’ve got more on the p1 as well which we we got last week see you soon thank you you
Transcribed from video
Subaru Impreza 99 WRC – Full Review! By Challenge The Road