Recently, cars have been fetching high numbers at auctions, especially when it comes to examples owned by famous people. Such was the case with this 1998 Subaru Impreza 22B sold for £480,500.

Subaru Impreza 22B was owned by British driver and World Rally Championship Drivers’ title winner, Colin McRae. Colin died in 2007, and in his career he achieved 25 victories and 42 podiums.

Subaru delivered this Impreza 22B to McRae in November 1998, one of three prototypes of the rally-inspired limited edition model. After that, 399 cars were produced for the Japanese market alone, 16 for the UK market and five for the Australian market.

The car is powered by a 2.2-liter EJ22 turbocharged four-cylinder engine with a factory 276 hp (206 kW). The reason for the small number of horsepower is the Gentleman’s Agreement between all Japanese car manufacturers including Toyota, Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi to limit all JDM production cars to 280bhp and 180kmh in order to reduce road fatalities. Subaru modified the gearbox, clutch, drive shaft, brakes and suspension to make the car as close as possible to the WRC model. It has only 11,802 km on the odometer.

The 22B was very successful for Subaru’s WRC team, winning three constructors’ titles in 1995, 1996 and 1997. This most desirable Subarus in the world comes with an aftermarket exhaust system, and the buyer got the original exhaust system as well as the original tires.

Source: Iconic Auctioneers

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