Project Midnight and the Huckster: how Subaru tried to win the Goodwood shootout

Subaru went to the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed with one ambition: to be the fastest up the hill. To do so, it shipped over two very different cars piloted by equally different American drivers. One, a little bit country, the other, a little bit rock and roll. Both fast as hell.

Subaru’s first weapon of choice was Project Midnight, a souped-up WRX built specifically for breaking records. Behind the wheel was American driver Scott Speed, who's served time in GP2, A1 GP, F1, NASCAR and even Rallycross.

Midnight follows the “Airslayer", a fire-spitting rally car built for Gymkhana shenanigans including ramps into the sky for actual air-slaying. Even as an all-rounder, the Airslayer set new records at the Mt. Washington hillclimb. Think what it could achieve if it was more purpose-built.

Project Midnight is meant to be the answer to that question. 300lbs lighter than the Airslayer and about 1,000lbs lighter than the WRX we can drive, the wide, jet black carbon-fiber body houses a turbocharged 2.0-liter flat-four engine that whips up 670hp and 680lb ft of torque, pinging at 9,500 rpms when the pedal is flat. In lieu of rally suspension, Project Midnight gets more track-focused suspension geometry, 18in wheels and a set of racing slicks.

Yannis Loison, technical director of Vermont Sports Car - the shop that builds Subaru’s race cars - was on hand to give TopGear.com some insights into Project Midnight’s development. To start, a stock WRX was indeed the basis of the racer, with Loison claiming there’s “still a lot of OEM (original equipment manufacturer)” in there somewhere, at least where the chassis is concerned. Everything else is custom or otherwise derived from the Subaru Motorsport rally car, like the engine and the big wing at the rear.

Drivability was the key rather than outright horsepower, with more of a focus on track-style superiority over the usual rally surface hooliganism. The travel suspension is reduced to a minimum and the body’s been specially developed with side elements to increase the mechanical grip.

Like the car he’s driving, Scott Speed is hyper-focused to the task at hand. “I’m super data-oriented,” Speed told TG. “I actually put a GoPro on my right side so I can look back and see how close I am to the corners.” With as many comparisons being made between the Airslayer and Project Midnight, it was natural that the difference in horsepower was going to come up. Why 'only' 670hp?

Speed says in instances like the harder-than-it-looks hillclimb, weight saving is more advantageous. “[Adding more power is] likely to make it go faster, but a lot of times, taking weight out is just as advantageous, because it’s helping you everywhere, it’s helping you accelerate, in braking and in cornering.”

He went on to talk about how he spends time between runs analyzing footage over and over to both sharpen his approach and dictate tuning changes to the Subaru. “I’m just trying to optimize physics,” said Speed, solidifying how technical and focused he is at shaving fractions of seconds off his time.

So there's Speed and his Project Midnight leaning towards the more technical, and on the other side... good old fashioned razzle dazzle. Step forward, Travis Pastrana and the 'Huckster', a wacky recreation of a 1983 Subaru GL family wagon. This 862hp monstrosity is fitted with an electro-pneumatically controlled active rear wing, with additional aero elements on the fender flares which are there mainly because the car spends just as much time soaring through the air as it does on the ground due to Pastrana’s penchant for jumping it over helicopters and the like.

“[Scott’s] phenomenal. He's like a robot… he just doesn't make mistakes,” Pastrana told TG. “I kind of jump in and I'm like… yeah,” he adds with a grin.

Along with being as colorful as a can of energy drink, the Huckster's as unlike the murdered-out, all-business Project Midnight as you can get. Outside of tuning, few changes were made to the Huckster for Goodwood, with its massive aero elements used to increase downforce before turns rather than landing it the right side up after going airborne.

“I'm going to err on the side of going a little too hard,” Pastrana said of his strategy. “If [the Huckster] steps out sideways, that’s my happy place.

"The worst thing that I could do is understeer into a hay bale or something,” Pastrana concluded, somewhat fatefully.

Because as it happened, the biggest thorn in Subaru’s side all weekend wasn't just the Ford Supervan - a 1,400hp electric speed machine piloted by two-time Le Mans winner Romain Dumas - but those pesky hay bales.

Pastrana, Speed and Dumas danced around each other on the time sheet during practice and qualifying, and were the last cars to make their runs on the Sunday. Of the three, the Huckster went first, coming out of the gate hot, kissing the grass of the first two corners and sliding up the Duke’s lawn with Pastrana's typical panache (read: being fully sideways). The wagon looked unstoppable as it came up the high-speed straight of the hill, dramatically slowing down with all its wings deployed before rounding Molecomb corner, the sharpest turn before the final section leading up to the finish. Frustratingly, Pastrana’s fears were realized and understeer saw the Huckster stuffed into the hay.

With the wagon shoved clear, Speed and Project Midnight made their run. Though far cleaner and clinical than his colleague, the WRX touched more grass than it should, and the car twisted under high-speed braking. In the end, the Subaru crossed the line at 46.07s, a second slower than the day before. Shortly thereafter, Dumas and the Ford Supervan would claim victory, setting a scorching 43.98s time.

We doubt this will be the last time we see Project Midnight rolled out for a record-breaking attempt, at Goodwood or otherwise, and we have a sneaking suspicion the computer-like Scott Speed is storing data away in his mental hard drive for the next one.