What kind of Pommy bloke has a TVR for less than three months before giving up in disgust and buying his third Subaru? Someone eminently sensible, basically. "The bloody thing spent more time in the garage than out, and owning a couple of Scoobies had gotten me used to relying on my car starting," remembers Sacha Rouchier, shaking his head a little.
Over the last six months the car has never once failed to deliver the goods. And during that time, Sacha has been transforming it into a bloody fine demonstrator for his new business, Sacha Rouchier Tuning and Design (SRT).
He started under the bonnet. Due to the nannying hand of regulations, cars in Japan are restricted to producing just 280hp. How did Subaru cope with this? By producing a car that gives 302hp on the dyno, and writing 280 on the spec sheet: simple lateral thinking, it's a beautiful thing...
But I digress. Sacha felt that even an illicit 302hp could be improved on, so employed the help of a Trust cone induction kit and Trust exhaust, to liberate about another 20 horses. Big up the power, give it large in the brake department, so the old saying goes. So Sacha hung 220mm AP Racing discs and four-pot calipers off the front hubs. He left the rears standard. But then found the standard wheels wouldn't go back on. Which explains the beautiful 18 x 7.5 Khan RSRs that took their place. These wear 215/40 Pirelli P7000 rubber (oddly enough, due for replacement after the shoot...). The combination resulted in a visible increase to the rolling radius, which tends to blunt acceleration a little. But, as the engine mods broaden the power band considerably, the car can still post a 4.5-second sprint to 97 km/h (60 mph). Thanks to the bigger wheels, too, top speed is now almighty 265 km/h. Which in Britain, a notorious breeding ground for speed cameras, is a tragically irrelevant figure...
The big 'ole wheels also fill up the arches, to such as extent that the standard suspension remains in place - except for a rear strut brace.
It's the car's bodywork that has received most of Sacha's attention. His very first car was a 1.8 Impreza GL. "It lacked that certain something," remembers Sacha. It was duller to look at than Yawnsville, Utah on a slow day, is what he's trying to say. Not once he'd designed and had made a bit of a body kit, it wasn't. A second car, a green WRX, also had a kit created for it. At this time the idea of SRT began to form in Sacha's mind, so he approached the STi project as a man with a plan. The front spoiler was designed, made and then bonded to a '99-spec bumper. The side skirts remained standard, although they won't be for long. Sacha attached what he calls 'winglets' to the trailing edge of them, before designing a spoiler for the rear bumper.
"I wasn't going to do a quad headlamp conversion," he grins, "but then I found this in France. It was only when I got it on that I realised how shit the standard lamps are. It uses four really good Cibie units." Looks ace, too. The smoked side repeaters are the result of canny work with a can of tint. And careful shopping. "I got clear ones first, as it takes less tint to make 'em work than orange ones. You just have to use orange bulbs." Another trip to France also turned up the unique, two-tone window tints.
Inside, another one of SRT's favourite tricks is on view. The centre dash pod, which replaces the useless storage compartment that comes as stock, adds a Blitz boost gauge and GGR oil gauge to the driver's information sources. There are shift lights, too. Once again, this is available from SRT. The only other change to the fantastic STi cabin is a Momo gear knob.
With a Pioneer head unit playing through uprated speakers and a Rodec 12-inch sub, we had a decent musical accompaniment as we drove out to our location, flanked by five of Sacha's mates. We used York Dragway to take pictures, as its airfield site had just the right kind of scenery to unlock snapper John's creativity. Oh yeah, and it was a massive, empty drag strip. And we had a modified STi to play with.
Tragic.
By some eerie coincidence, the week we photographed this car was designated National Donut Week somewhere - probably, let's face it, the USA. Anyway, it'd be rude not to celebrate this, so soon the Scooby was pirouetting merrily across the tarmac. Ironically enough, the very day of the shoot was National No-smoking day. You can't win 'em all.
Next, we all took turns to pound down the quarter mile, with Sacha murmuring encouragement in our ears. "It doesn't really give its all until 7,500rpm," he said. D'okay, boss! He was right, too. Should you ever get to a York Dragway day you'll see what fun we had - it's written in black all over the strip. Even better, go get one of these godly machines, trick it up a bit with parts from Sacha's stock list, then go. Only then will you really know how good our job can be at times.
