The painstaking process behind reviving Solberg's Subaru WRC steed

With attention to detail the first concern, Prodrive’s new Legends department has completed its first restoration project on Petter Solberg's 2004 Rally Japan winner – and is busily gearing up for more

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Toyota, Subaru and Mitsubishi passed around the baton for Japan to win a mighty seven World Rally Championship manufacturers’ crowns in a row between 1993 and 1999. Yet the Land of the Rising Sun would wait another five years before making its debut on the WRC calendar. Little wonder, when that time came, that so many of Subaru’s top brass turned out to watch their reigning champion Petter Solberg take to the rough stuff on the island of Hokkaido.

The Norwegian needed to bounce back aboard his Impreza S10, having suffered a massive crash on the preceding Rally Germany to cause a third straight retirement. His response for the inaugural running of Rally Japan in 2004 was emphatic. He and co-driver Phil Mills carved out a 10-second cushion on the opening Yam Wakka route alone and ruled the roost from there. Over the remaining 26 narrow and high-speed gravel stages, they pulled out an eventual 1m13.3s margin to the Citroen Xsara of Sebastien Loeb in second place.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.