One of the truly great automotive events in this world is the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Great Britain, a glorious celebration of competition cars from the past whose activities include an all-out hillclimb that runs up the host estate’s long driveway. Subaru of America showed up last year with a very tricked-out interpretation of a 1983 Subaru GL station wagon that had been modified almost beyond recognition by Vermont SportsCar, which prepares the Subaru U.S. rally team’s weapons. The wagon placed first in class in the hillclimb in 2022 and this week, repeated the trick at Goodwood.
This year, extreme sports star and Subaru rally driver Travis Pastrana led the charge up the hill, with the GL again placing first in class and this time, second overall among all competitors, with Pastrana appropriately hooning it up in memory of the late Subaru rally star Ken Block. Despite two days of rain on the hill, the “Family Huckster” was able to tap its 863 turbocharged horsepower to emerge at the top of the summit. Pastrana would have unquestionably scored an outright win if McLaren hadn’t entered one of its gigabuck hypercars at the last minute.
Jim Donnelly On Wheels 