If you’ve followed motorsport for the last four decades, whether it be the WRC, WEC or BTCC, you’ll have heard of Prodrive. The company is a motorsport engineering powerhouse and has won almost everywhere it’s competed. It was founded in 1984 by David Richards, a man who trained as an accountant before ditching that entirely and focus on his passion: motorsport. Having spent eight years as a co-driver in the British and Scandinavian rally championships, he won the WRC title in 1981 as co-driver to the legendary Ari Vatanen. Fast forward to 1983 and Prodrive was born, and since then it has competed in more than 1200 events, winning more than 300 and claiming a podium place almost 500 times. It makes a lot of sense, then, to take a look through the Prodrive archive and examine some of its finest creations.
Porsche 911 SC RS (1984)
We have to start with where it all began. This Porsche 911 SC RS was the car Prodrive entered its first event. More impressive, though, is that it was simultaneously the car Prodrive first won with. At the hands of local Qatari driver Saeed Al Hajri and with Brit John Spiller as co-driver, on 27th January 1984, it won the first round of the inaugural FIA Middle East Rally Championship, the Qatar International Rally. From there Hajri won two more events, securing the 1984 title.
Amazingly, the same car was driven by Henri Toivonen in the European Rally Championship in the same year, and by the end of the season, they had finished second in the championship standings. Sadly all we have to show you of this glorious machine is some footage from a Prodrive test in 2013, but still, what a fantastic car.
Subaru Impreza (1995)
The legendary Colin McRae had rallied Subarus in the WRC from 1991, but the stars had never really aligned. A steady season in 1993, including his first win in New Zealand, yielded him fifth in the championship. In 1994, two wins right at the end of the season only pushed him to fourth in the standings. The following year, however, was McRae’s year. At the wheel of a Subaru Impreza, McRae had a difficult start to the season, with two retirements, but in the following six rallies he only failed to win or finish in a podium position once. His victory at the RAC Rally, the final round of the season, made him not just the first British World Rally Champion but also secured Subaru its first Constructors’ title. Even Prodrive has written that this was “perhaps the most iconic moment in the company’s history”.
Although McRae came second in 1996 and 1997, his performances, as well as those of his Subaru compatriots, secured the company a further two Constructor titles. Is that 1995 Subaru one of the most iconic rally cars of all time? Without a doubt.
Ford Mondeo BTCC (2000)
Prodrive’s first foray into circuit racing began in 1987 in the BTCC. Prodrive ran BMW’s entry, a BMW M3 with Frank Sytner at the wheel, and although they only took part in five rounds, Sytner managed a podium straight out of the box and a win at Donington Park. A year later and partaking in a full season, Sytner won the Drivers’ Championship, and Class B championships in ’89 and ’90. After six years with BMWs, Prodrive ran the Alfa Romeo, Honda and Ford teams, and it is with the latter that we will delve a little deeper.
The year 2000 was the last for the ‘Super Touring’ monsters, cars that were so far removed from their road-going namesakes that costs were spiralling out of control and change was on the horizon for 2001. As a result, Prodrive and Ford put everything into that year’s effort, one final hurrah, having come last in the Manufacturers’ race the year before. Alain Menu, Anthony Reid and Rickard Rydell dominated, finishing first, second and third in the Drivers’ Championship with 11 race wins between them and first in the Manufacturers’, 104 points ahead of Honda and 116 ahead of Vauxhall. It was a wild year, and we highly recommend you jump head-first into YouTube to watch as many of these old races as you can manage.
Subaru Impreza (2001)
Although Subaru secured the 1996 and 1997 WRC Constructors’ titles, Drivers’ championships kept slipping away. In 1996 McRae finished second behind Tommi Mäkinen’s Mitsubishi, and in 1997 the same thing happened again. In 1998 Mäkinen won again, while Carlos Sainz finished second for Toyota and McRae settled for third, and the team dropped to third with him. But the tides were about to change. Englishman Richard Burns jumped ship from Mitsubishi to Subaru for 1999 while McRae went to Ford. Burns finished second behind his old team-mate Mäkinen that year (and also visited the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard for a battle up the Hill with McRae), and in 2000 he finished second behind Peugeot’s Marcus Grönholm, but in 2001 Burns made his mark.
A shaky start to the season gave way to one fourth place, one third, four seconds and one victory, in New Zealand. With a third place at Rally GB, the final round of the year, Burns took the 2001 Drivers’ title. Subaru as a team only managed fourth overall, but that was more down to Burns being the only driver who competed for the whole season rather than the quality of the car itself.
Aston Martin DBR9
With the launch of the DB9 road car in 2004, Aston Martin was looking to head back to the world of sportscars. It had been more than 40 years since the company had triumphed at Le Mans, winning the 1959 edition with the DBR1, and since it had taken the World Sports Car Championship at Goodwood. With that in mind, Aston Martin turned to Prodrive to create Aston Martin Racing, and the car that emerged from that was the DBR9.
The DBR9 was a monster. Although it retained the DB9’s aluminium chassis and the 6.0-litre V12’s engine block, everything else was entirely new. The body was made from carbon-fibre, there was a six-speed sequential gearbox, the double-wishbone suspension was all new, there were monstrous carbon-ceramic brakes and super-light magnesium OZ wheels, and so much more.
The DBR9’s first race was at the 2005 12 Hours of Sebring, part of the American Le Mans Series, and much to Prodrive’s delight the number 57 car of Darren Turner, David Brabham and Stéphane Ortelli won its GT1 class, a full lap ahead of its rivals from Corvette. Fast forward two years, and with a number of wins across the ALMS and the Le Mans Series, the 009 DBR9 of Turner, Brabham and Rickard Rydell conquered the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours GT1 class, with a customer-run DBR9 finishing third and two more securing fifth and seventh. In 2008 the DBR9 won once again, this time by less than a lap over rivals from Corvette.
Aston Martin Vantage GTE
The DBR9 was retired by Aston Martin Racing in 2008, and last raced on the international stage in 2011, but it hadn’t given up on racing, and come 2012 it was back on track with a new contender, the V8 Vantage GTE. The GTE was a development of the GT2 racer, the customer racing version of the road-going V8 Vantage, and while it had a front-mounted V8 and was rear-wheel-drive, like the road car, beyond the same aluminium chassis it was almost entirely different. It had a 4.5-litre dry-sump V8 with new cylinder heads, connecting rods, valves, camshafts and a racing exhaust system, a six-speed sequential box, bespoke wishbones, Koni adjustable dampers, and so on… In short, Prodrive took everything it learned from the DBR9 and applied and improved it for the Vantage GTE.
Making its debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring, the car of Turner, Stefan Mücke and Adrian Fernandez came third, and with consistently good results the team finished the year in second with its first win at the final round in Shanghai. Roll forward to 2013, now with two cars, the Vantage GTE was getting stronger, winning four races, while one of the two cars fielded in the Am class secured the Drivers’ championship. The Vantage GTE continued to perform, and by the end of its racing career it had won at Le Mans in both the Am and Pro categories, in 2014 and 2017 respectively, and the Am Drivers’ title again in 2014, the Pro Teams’ and Drivers’ championships in 2016 and both Am accolades in 2017.
Prodrive BRX
Now for something a little different, the Prodrive Hunter. As you might have guessed by looking at it, this is no WRC machine. This is a Dakar car, designed and built by Prodrive and entered by BRX, or the ‘Bahrain Raid Xtreme’ team, operated by Prodrive.
The first version was unveiled in 2020, its sole purpose in life to compete in the Dakar. But before it actually competed the rules changed, and so the Hunter became the Hunter T1+. The wheels and tyres went from having 16-inch and 32-inchers respectively to 17-inches and 37-inches, while the suspension travel went from 280mm to 350mm. The body was wider, too, by 300mm to 2.3m, while the wishbones and dampers were longer, the brakes larger, and the driveshafts, propshaft and differentials all modified. Running on a Prodrive EcoPower sustainable fuel, which reduces greenhouse emissions by 80 per cent (on a 338km stage tests showed that equated to three tonnes of gas), Sébastien Loeb finished second in class at the 2022 Dakar, with a second BRX, driven by Orlando Terranova, finishing fourth. It might not have won, but we’ll be keeping a very close eye on it in 2023…
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.
Keyword: Prodrive’s best race and rally cars