Why have you chosen that sand colour for the first car?
“That’s the crown prince’s choice and he’s the first customer. He thinks the car should suit its environment, and now we’ve all seen it, we approve. We probably wouldn’t have chosen that, but I’d say it works.”
Why is the road car more powerful than your competition machinery?
“Mainly because it can be. The Dakar regulations place limits on turbo boost, and the road car doesn’t have to have those. Because we build our engines from scratch in Banbury, we know how durable the V6 is, so we’ve just given it a bit more freedom.”
Do you expect to change the T1 gearing for the road?
“It’s possible we might like to make them a shade more relaxed when cruising, but we’re still deciding. We’ll learn a lot from the early cars.”
Do you expect to sell road cars in the UK?
“We’re not sure yet. But you wouldn’t bet against a BRX appearing in London some time, even if it’s imported by an owner who lives somewhere else.”
Previous Prodrive road cars
2000 Subaru Impreza P1: With experience running Subaru’s rally cars, Prodrive was charged with engineering the original Impreza WRX STi for sale in Europe. A bespoke suspension tune, anti-lock brakes and wheels designed by Peter Stevens were the main modifications.