Think building a Gymkhana car is as simple as turning up the turbo boost and bolting on a big wing? Wrong.
Subaru America and Hoonigan have revealed the painstaking details that went into creating the outrageous Subaru WRX STI that Travis Pastrana used to drift, donut and fly through Gymkhana 2020.
In order to build a car capable of jumping Annapolis harbour or hitting a jump at 241km/h, Subaru and Hoonigan worked with the Japanese brand’s long-time rally team – Vermont SportsCar. As you’ll see in the first video, the level of effort that went into the aerodynamics was remarkable, in order to ensure the car behaved as it should both on the ground and in the air.
Subaru Motorsport USA technical director, Bertrand Vallat, is no stranger to rally cars having worked as chief designer for Hyundai Motorsport and Peugeot Sport before that, but the Gymkhana build presented him with unique challenges, as he explains.
If that’s not enough for you, check out the deep dive video below made by Hoonigan, the production house behind Gymkhana; and co-founded by original Gymkhana star, Ken Block. Vermont SportsCar drew on its rally and rallycross experience but also enjoyed the freedom of not having to follow any motorsport rule book to create the ultimate WRX STI.
It comes with exhaust pipes popping out of the bonnet (complete with STI graphics cut into them), a carbon fibre body as well as a ‘Donut’ and ‘Send It’ button on the steering wheel. There’s also a small oxygen tank mounted on the driver’s door in case any of the stunts near the harbour went wrong.
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