Richard Hammond Has Bought A Car From The Grand Tour And Is Looking To Give It Serious Power
Richard Hammond has purchased the Subaru Impreza he drove on the latest Grand Tour episode, A Scandi Flick. He had already expressed his love for the car in a recent video on The Grand Tour YouTube channel where he admitted that he was looking to purchase it, but now he’s fully gone through with it.
Talking about the car on DriveTribe, he said the following:
“I’ve got some plans for it. That’s why I’m gonna need your help. But before we get to the next stage, let’s introduce you to the car. It’s the WRX, it’s the V Limited Edition – Japan only.
“Some of what is on it now isn’t standard. The large dent on the bonnet, for instance, some of the missing panels down here were modifications I made on the road during our adventure across Scandinavia,” he said pointing at the lower third of the car.
“Also, livery… It did say martini. Does now say Martin. One word for that: Jeremy.”
He continued:
“Further modifications that we made include, yeah. Some of the wrap is not… yeah, we’ll get to that in a bit. Other things that make the V Limited special. Especially this car… rally hatch,” he says opening the hatch on the roof.
“I didn’t need any cool air in Scandinavia at all. It also has adjustable centre lock. You can bias it forwards and backwards from the centre of the dash, which is brilliant.
“It makes an already wonderful car even better on that point, the WRX STI V Limited Edition is not by any means the best Subaru Impreza ever made, but even the worst Subaru Impreza ever made is still a wonderful thing. And this is by no means the worst. Brilliant and I love it and I can’t wait to get going with it.”
After a bit of chat about what was left in the car after The Grand Tour episode, Hammond moves on to what he plans to do with the car:
“What am I gonna do to and with it?” he asks. “There are some things I need putting right. Bit of rust, blemishing around the wheel arch. We’ll do all of that at the smallest cog.
“But then what? Do I leave the wrap? The wrap is part of its story with me, but am I gonna preserve it as a time capsule of that journey, or do I want to turn it into my dream Subaru Impreza? In which case this not-brilliantly-applied wrap comes off. We repair the body work, the few dings and bangs I added to it. We paint it in glorious Subaru, Impreza blue, we finish the wheels, and then the interior.”
Moving on to potential performance modifications, he discussed what he might do if he chooses to upgrade it:
“I don’t think I need to do anything to the interior. More about engine and drive training gearbox. I mean, you can dial these things up a lot.
“So you could put a huge amount of power to it. I could dial it up. I mean, we did. I did remap it. And it has got anti lag, but I can go further. A lot further. The options with a car like this are pretty much endless, so I’m gonna scratch my head and make a plan. It’s sort of for me, but I’m willing to open it to you as well.”
With the video coming to an end, he poses the audience with some questions:
“I’m pretty sure you’ll have your own ideas as to what I should do. I’d like to hear from you. Do I paint it? Do I leave it in the wrap? Do I restore it to original? Do I make it better than original? Do I make it more powerful? I don’t know.
“I want to hear your ideas, but I do now own an Impreza.”
