Prodrive

And that change in 97 was introduced to allow to essentially break down the barrier of entry.

That's how, you know, SEAT came with transmission from ProDrive and all of that.

You know, that, yeah.

So, yeah, I'm a little bit lost.

That was a metric that everybody was aiming for back in the, the day.

Well, I bought, I bought three of the cars from David Richards when he was, uh, moving, becoming Prodrive-

Right

... and moving out of, um, Porsches, tried a Metro or two.

So Christian Horner was...

His team was Arden at the time, and I think it was him and his dad, and then Prodrive, I believe, bought half of it.

You didn't always get to know it, just this other factory had got these guys in it, and he would be in the smoker room and what have you, and you sort of knew of him then.

And then, yeah, I mean, like Simon was, Simon Cole was the engineer He started in the test team when I first went into the test team.

SS13 is a bit of an inspirational episode.

We'll be hearing from Martin Spurl about his time working at Prodrive during the Impreza era, with recollections of McRae, Burns, Sainz, name the legend.

And we'll also be talking to former works rally driver Chris Birkbeck, someone who went from club rally driver to works hero, seemingly overnight.

But first, there's someone who has caught all of our attention this season.

me.

Once I heard that ProDrive had built the car, because when the outside PR agency pitched this story, they randomly showed up in my inbox, and I'm like, oh, okay, well...

Getting to see this record would be cool, but why would a car enthusiast care that a construction...

Farming equipment.

Farming equipment manufacturer is doing this.

And then the agency told me, oh, well, ProDrive built the car.

I'm like, okay, now I have a story.

So this is how it can matter to the enthusiast.

Go on

... mine's the BMW E30 M3 engine, the S14, but I'm cheating a little bit here, right? Because I'm, I'm actually nominating the, the Prodrive rally car that I drove s- many years ago with 300 horsepower.

Because actually, Andrew, I wonder if you agree with this, I think the S14 in the standard road car's a little bit anemic.

Mm, yeah, maybe a bit.