Rally wasn’t dead, but it was on life support. A quiet blip in the world of motorsport, stripped of the fire that had made Group B both legendary and lethal. The spectacle was gone, kept alive by hardcore enthusiasts at it's bedside. Then Subaru showed up in blue and gold, gravel spitting from its tires like a slingshot aimed at the crowd. Colin McRae, Richard Burns, Carlos Sainz, and a small factory team from Banbury called Prodrive shocked the patient back to life. Rally was loud again, and Subaru built a road car to prove it. The 22B.
It was around then Robert Jackson first heard from Subaru UK. The letter that followed still raises the hair on the back of his neck. It confirmed the car’s scarcity and explained that just 16 would be officially imported as 22B STI Type UK. Type UK meant Robert wasn’t just buying another fast Japanese coupe through the grey market; Subaru themselves had sanctioned the cars for British roads, with odometers in miles and small but important tweaks like revised lighting, side markers, and immobilizers to meet UK regulations. To be one of those sixteen owners, you had to be chosen.
The 22B existed because Subaru had done what seemed impossible after Group B’s collapse: it made rally a cultural force again. From 1995 through 1997, the Impreza won three straight WRC manufacturers’ championships, driven not just by engineering but by the personalities behind the wheel. McRae’s fearless, sideways style made him a folk hero, Sainz brought pedigree, and Burns carried the promise of Britain’s next champion. Together, with Prodrive’s polish, they turned Subaru from an also-ran into a cultural juggernaut and sent the Impreza surging into popularity well beyond rally stages. Colin McRae was sideways on TV commercials, Richard Burns was cutting his teeth, and the blue and gold livery became shorthand for speed. Subaru wasn’t just winning stages, it was rewriting what a rally car could mean to a generation that thought the party was over in ’86.
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, and those three titles, Subaru built the 22B. At first glance, it looked like the Impreza from your neighbor’s driveway after a month on steroids. The arches were wide, muscular, and purposeful. The paint was a deeper shade of rally blue. Gold BBS wheels filled the swollen fenders. Under the hood sat the EJ22G, a hand-built 2.2-liter turbo flat-four with torque that hit harder than any WRX had before. Suspension was bespoke. Ratios in the gearbox were shorter. This wasn’t a styling package. It wasn’t the exact chassis McRae and Sainz threw down rally stages either, the works cars were obviously Prodrive-built gravel weapons, but the 22B carried their DNA. Subaru launched it in 1998, immediately after those three back to back championships, as a celebratory road car that looked and felt like the title winners. It was Subaru bottling its rally dominance and selling it in numbered form, just 424 in total.
For Robert, the hook came at the NEC Motor Show. The color itself seemed so unique, slightly different to the World Rally car, but more beautiful. The lines of the car, everything about it just looked absolutely perfect. He wrote to Subaru UK. They wrote back and interviewed him, wanting to be sure the few cars they had went to the right hands. The confirmation arrived in a letter: “Exclusive doesn’t even begin to describe what you are driving. Only 424 examples of the Impreza 22B STI will ever be produced worldwide, making this one of the rarest cars on the road.” When someone finally told him, “Mr. Jackson, you are one of the lucky 12 customers,” he could feel himself hyperventilating. In reality, while Subaru UK imported 16 Type UK cars in total, its likely only 12 were offered to individual buyers, with the remaining four kept for press and demonstration use.
The day he collected it is burned into his memory. Sliding his hands over the Nardi wheel, easing the car out of the showroom, he realized this was no ordinary Impreza. Everything about it felt classy, exciting, powerful, full of quality. He fell in love even more from that first moment. That love wasn’t private. Owning one of the rarest cars in Britain meant notes under his wipers, invitations to clubs, strangers at Donington Park asking if the rumor was true, that yes, it really was a 22B. The car ended up featured in Japanese Performance magazine, his ownership documented as part of the Impreza’s growing legend.
Two and a half decades later, Robert faced the reality that all rare cars do: time doesn’t care. A full restoration was needed. But the goal wasn’t to modify, to chase power figures, or to modernize. It was to preserve. He explained that he wanted to make sure that this legacy, this car that was going to be with him and then with somebody after him when he was no longer around, would be amazing. Every part would be restored to how it was from new. Like a new penny, like a piece of art.
Driving it again, he says it still feels like that first day, tight, responsive, alive. The difference now is perspective. This car makes him different. He’s part of it. The car has made him shine brighter. Because it’s the car. It’s not him. It’s the car.
That’s the 22B’s magic. It wasn’t built to dominate collectors’ auctions or to sit under a dust cover. It was built to remind the world that rally wasn’t dead. It was built to put Prodrive’s gravel-slinging championship cars in civilian hands, to make people like Robert hyperventilate at the thought of ownership. Rally’s golden age didn’t end with Group B’s funeral. It just paused until Subaru flew overcrest towards a 9 right into imminent glory. The 22B was the exclamation point, a defiant reminder that motorsport’s most visceral theater still had something to say.
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