To many of us, the greatest touring car of all time was the Volvo 850 wagon. Not by any quantifiable mark like wins, but because it was the British Touring Car Championship’s first wagon. You can’t not smile at a wagon being driven like a maniac. Now Team BMR is bringing the insanity back with a Subaru Levorg.
The Levorg is a midsize station wagon that we sadly do not get in the United States, but it does share a platform with the Impreza that we do get.
According to Autosport, previous BTCC champions Jason Plato and Colin Turkington will drive Team BMR’s wonderful wagons. The wagons will also be converted from all-wheel-drive to rear-wheel-drive to fit the BTCC’s regulations. Powering them will be a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine developed by Mountune Race Engines—a name you may recognize as the engine builder for Ford’s Global Rallycross effort. Crash.net confirms that the engine will remain a boxer, as it should be on a Subaru.
Team Principal Warren Scott is optimistic about the wagon’s ability to win, telling Autosport:
The Levorg is Subaru’s newest car and that is the one they want to promote, which is why it has been chosen.
Although it is an estate car, it has a very strong drag coefficient and also the dynamics of the boxer engine mean that the weight is lower down in the unit, which will help with the weight distribution of the car.
If you looked at all of the cars available that could have fitted into the BTCC regulations, the Levorg would be very high up on that list, which is why we are delighted to have secured this.
Plato agrees, telling Autosport, “It is almost the perfect car for the modern generation of touring cars.”
We love seeing wagons two-wheel over curbs and make crazy close passes, so we couldn’t agree more.
Per TouringCarTimes, the Levorg Sport Tourer used by Team BMR will be the third-ever wagon (or “estate” if you’re actually from Britain) to run in the BTCC, after the Volvo 850 in 1994 and the Honda Civic Tourer in 2014. That makes longroofs like this Levorg a rare sight!
Photo credit: Subaru/Andy Blackmore Design
Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.