2024 Subaru WRX: Project Midnight Places Second at the Festival of Speed Hillclimb

Subaru Motorsports USA and Vermont SportsCar saw their efforts bear fruit this weekend at Goodwood. Their WRX: Project Midnight placed second at the 2024 Festival of Speed Timed Shootout.

Engineered purely for speed, WRX: Project Midnight has a carbon fiber body and the barest of chassis, giving it a curb weight of under 2500 lb. That’s 1000 lb. lighter than a standard WRX. It also has a suspension custom-built for racing on tarmac, along with 18-inch OZ Racing Superturismo LMP magnesium wheels and 280/650R18 Yokohama Advan slick tires.

Propelling its dark but also very light body is a turbocharged and intercooled 2-liter flat-four engine that maxes out at 670 horsepower and 680 lb-ft. of torque. It’s based on the rallycross engine that Subaru Motorsports used in their 2021 Nitro Rallycross Teams Championship run.

It’s no surprise then veteran racer Scott Speed, the man who was behind the wheel in that rallycross win, is also the driver that Subaru tapped to pilot WRX: Project Midnight. Both Speed and the car did not disappoint at the festival’s iconic hillclimb, although agonizingly, they placed second all throughout the weekend to Hillclimb titan Romain Dumas and his supremely souped up Ford Supervan 4.2.

The Subaru had a qualifying time of 45.1 seconds, just a tenth of a second behind the Ford. It turned out that Dumas was just warming up. At the Timed Shootout itself, Dumas outdid everyone including himself with a winning time of 43.98 seconds. Speed and Project Midnight once again finished second with a time of 46.08 seconds. Skip to 3:50 in the video below to see Speed and Project Midnight’s official attempt: