Subaru WRX: Project Midnight was a star at Goodwood, here's why

CHICHESTER, England — There was apparently some resistance, somewhere upstairs in the Subaru hierarchy, to the Project Midnight livery: all black. With an emphasis on “all.” Apparently, it was hard to see the wisdom in not being able to see the resplendent blue and yellow emblems of the Subaru brand on what is, at its core, a brand-enhancing exercise. There were apparently 45 or so back-and-forths about possible livery designs, including more conventional ones, but ultimately the pure murdered-out approach was taken. It was a good choice.

In the high-speed parade that is the Goodwood Festival of Speed hill climb, the seemingly endless stream of race cars and other brand exercises are inevitably festooned in advertisements galore. It all just blends together in one visually overwhelming blur. By contrast, the Subaru WRX: Project Midnight stood out as being one of one by going in the exact opposite direction. There was no mistaking it for something other than the mightiest and most over-the-top of Subaru WRXs. And just in case it was hard to see the stock WRX hiding somewhere beneath the carbon fiber aerodynamic body extensions and a wing larger than some produced by Embraer, there are still gloss black Subaru Motorsports emblems about to break up the matte black and bare, unvarnished carbon fiber. It’s really cool, and judging by the constant crowd around its corner paddock spot, that’s not a rare opinion.

Although Project Midnight will live to see other adventures, it was primarily created to achieve the fastest time up the Duke of Richmond’s driveway at Goodwood. The all-time record was basically not possible – the McMurtry Speirling literally sucked so much, it set a time that was effectively deemed too dangerous to chase in the future. It’s no longer allowed to compete in the day’s shootout, but did get a chance to repeatedly run up the hill, and it’s bonkers.

Anyway, Project Midnight was among the favorites to take the crown with Scott Speed behind the wheel. As the weekend went on and multiple practice runs were completed, Speed simultaneously got to know the car and course – it was his first time running the hill climb. According to technical director Yannis Loison, each run provided a bit more information, yielded more feedback from Speed, with adjustments made accordingly, such as turning up boost and other engine parameters to increase power. Each subsequent run also shaved off seconds until it sat at 45.15 with the penultimate run Sunday morning. That was a mere six tenths of a second off the pace of the Ford Supervan, the electric, vaguely van-like conveyance driven by Alain Dumas that was derived from the one that went up Pike’s Peak.

Despite the narrow margin between the two, it sure felt being around the Subaru team that it seemed like they were much larger underdogs.

“(Project Midnight) is not electric,” Loison said while giving us a tour of his creation. “We can’t push a button and get 400 horsepower more.”

He said it matter-of-factly, and not entirely throwing shade at the Supervan (or maybe he was, I don’t know, he speaks with a French accent), but there was a definite degree of resignation to the fact Project Midnight may not be taking this one.

“We want to get 45 (seconds),” the zero-nonsense Speed said when asked if there was a time he was shooting for. “But with conditions, I don’t make promises.”

Prophetic words it would seem.

As you can see at the very beginning of the above video, Speed seemed to have some issue under braking that got the car squirrelly and therefore losing, um, speed too soon heading into the tricky corner known as Molecomb. It’s the braking zone after the run’s first quasi-straight, so perhaps it’s not surprising that an issue could arise there in a new car with tires/brakes that perhaps got a bit cold after several prolonged stoppages (Travis Pastrana crashing his Subaru GL Wagon Huckster certainly didn’t help on that front).

Whatever the reason, it likely contributed to the final run actually being slower than the previous one at 46.07. Bummer, but any disappointment was quickly tempered when the Supervan immediately set off thereafter and blitzed past its previous time to win the day at 43.98. Project Midnight probably didn’t have that in it. Even with the slower speed, though, it still came in second.

So what exactly is Project Midnight? Join me now in the paddock for a tour of its various (totally wild) components.

The engine and many of the upgrades are either derived from or brought over nearly unchanged from Subaru Motorsports’ rallycross car. It is a 2.0-liter boxer four-cylinder turbocharged and intercooled to produce approximately 670 horsepower and 680 pound-feet of torque. It revs to 9,500. Checks notes. Yes, it would seem that is quite a bit more on all fronts than the stock WRX.

You should be able to tell that engine is pushed far back in the engine bay – a fact also obvious when taking a look at the interior a bit later.

Besides cooling, the engine’s block and cylinder strength were increased, and they maximized the amount of air they could stuff inside (more on that in a sec). The driveline and six-speed sequential gearbox were retrofitted with minimal changes from the rallycross car.

There’s a restriction for the turbo intake for rallycross cars that obviously doesn’t exist for the hill climb, so the team worked with the turbocharger supplier to push the envelope.

You’re looking at the resulting turbocharger and its intercooler here. The latter is very big, because producing all that boost requires a lot of cooling. So does the engine, but that’s not handled up here.

According to Loison, with the amount of power made by the engine, a certain amount of cooling was needed. With such a short run, there’s only so much air that can go in through the front for both the intercooler and the radiator. You’d have to compromise. Thankfully, this WRX doesn’t need to have functioning doors to access a back seat. Gigantic holes were cut into the carbon fiber door-looking body panels (the cut lines are charmingly quite rough) leading to ducts that stuff air into the rear-mounted ducted radiator.

Loison said that they probably didn’t need such a big radiator, but it was better to have overkill while trying to the push the engine harder with each subsequent run than go with a lighter, smaller radiator and worry about cooling.

As for the exhaust, yeah, it isn’t back here.

Nope, that’s up front, belching flames out the hood. Shorter exhaust travel is good for power, and not having a bunch of pipes running the length of the car removed 26 pounds in total. Somehow, I figured it would be more, but still. Did I mention the flames? This is rad.

Above left is actually not an intake, it’s plugged up. This giant hole opposite the exhaust one, however, is definitely not plugged up.

Here’s a good look at the front splitter. You can see it took a few hits during the climb up.

The ulta-wide aerodynamic body work is special to Project Midnight. I don’t know, I think they should try to make this work for a road car. If the Dodge Challenger can have its Widebody and Ford can Raptor all the things, why can’t Subaru get this Batmobile treatment? Hmm? Hmmmmm?

You might have noticed, but Project Midnight has a rather large wing. If you told me the Subaru guys walked over to the Red Bull tents in the middle of the night after a few beers, crowbarred a wing off an F1 car, spray painted it black and hoped no one would notice, I would believe you. It’s actually an enlarged version of the wing found on the Subaru Motorsports team’s WRX ARA24 gravel rally car.

Unlike the side aero, I’m OK with this being left off the options list. Then again, we do have a long-term WRX at Autoblog. To hell with it, I’ll put in a call to Subaru. They had no problem installing that CD player for us.

You can tell by just how far the suspension is dangling down here that it was originally intended for rallying, but the team reduced it to the absolute minimum because the car was going to be racing on an aristocrat’s driveway.

The brakes are by Alcon; 350 mm front, 320 mm rear. It has Endless brake pads. I assume that’s a brand and not an adjective.

The steering rack is custom and has a 11:1 ratio, plus a high-flow power steering pump. Speed apparently reported that it felt twitchy in early runs, which came as a surprise to the engineers given the venue and surface. Loison said it apparently therefore needed greater straight-line stability, which is something they’ll keep in mind for the future.

If you look closely, you’ll see the subtle differences between the Project Midnight interior and the stock WRX interior. Every damn thing, for instance. And here, you can see the result of the enormous, blocky tunnel that results from stuffing the boxer into a mid-engine position.

So there you have it, Project Midnight. It probably won’t be the last we’ll see of it, and I sure hope Subaru will come back for another go up the hill with additional learnings under its belt. And even if it can’t add another 400 horsepower at the push of a button and best Ford, well, at least it’s not a van.