Hoonigan. Subaru. Vermont SportsCar. Three great tastes that, when mixed properly, go incredibly well together. VSC has been building rally cars for Ken Block and Travis Pastrana since time immemorial (circa 2006), but the company’s move into supplying Hoonigan with gymkhana cars has given it a newfound freedom from any sanctioning body’s rules.
What do you do if you’re a top-tier builder of all-wheel-drive rally monsters, asked to build something to shred tires on camera? Do you take a modern chassis, bump up the power, and send Travis Pastrana on his merry way? Of course not. You make the world’s sickest wagon.
Hoonigan is no stranger to retro vehicles. In fact, this 1983 Subaru GL wagon is a pretty natural progression for the brand. What started with Gymkhana 7's Hoonicorn, a ‘65 Mustang, led into the Hoonitruck featured in Gymkhana 10: a 1977 Ford F-150 with 914 horsepower and 702 ft-lbs of torque. Hoonigan’s changing sponsorships meant a switch from Ford to Subaru, and the inexorable advance of time meant that the next car had to be a bit newer. Thus, the ‘83 GL wagon.
Hoonigan released a video featuring the new Subaru, in which Pastrana claimed the car makes “somewhere around 900 horsepower.” His favorite part of the new chassis, however, seems to be the added visibility over the STI from his last Gymkhana entry. He’s expecting better proximity in his drifts with the new car, and I can’t picture viewers disliking that.
The as-yet-unnamed GL wagon did its first on-camera drifts in the Hoonigan video, but a full debut is expected in a new Gymkhana entry later this year. Pastrana also mentioned the car’s flight dynamics, which could mean his car-jumping antics from Gymkhana 2020 aren’t quite out of his system. Whether it’s flying or just drifting, seeing this two-box brick convert tires into smoke should make for a very entertaining time.