Next month in Frankfurt, we'll all get our first looks at Subaru's new WRC car in the form of the Subaru WRC Concept. The automaker will have driver Petter Solberg on hand for the introduction of the racer, which for all intents and purposes shows us what the next-gen Impreza WRC car will look like. It should also offer a very strong hint at the styling of the forthcoming Impreza STI. The STI grille, big wing and bulging bodywork do the new Impreza some good, as this looks worlds better and far more aggressive than the soft-looking standard car. Subaru has released no details other than the two images you see here. Rest assured, our Frankfurt team will bring you the full scoop from the floor in Germany next month.
In the late sixties and early seventies, many car companies were enamored with the power density of Wankel rotary engines, including NSU, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and General Motors. GM ultimately built at least two mid-engine "Corvette" concepts with Wankels, one with two rotors and the other with four. The four-rotor was eventually replaced by a small block to become the Aerovette. When John Z. Delorean left to create his own car, he envisioned it propelled by a rotary engine as well.
As was the case with every other carmaker save Mazda, the Wankel was ultimately abandoned in favor of a piston engine. But one Delorean owner didn't forget the original vision. Through the 1980s and 1990s the only rotary-powered car sold in the US market was the Mazda RX-7 although Mazda did offer the engine in other Japanese-market models. One of those was a coupe called the Eunos Cosmo. The Cosmo eventually got a 2.0L three-rotor version of the engine that put out 300hp. One of these was sacrificed to provide a new heart for the Delorean you see here.
There's more commentary after the jump, and a video, too.
The Wankel is bolted to the back of a six-speed gearbox from a 1995 Porsche 911 C2, while the original instrument cluster was swapped out in favor of the electronic cluster from the Cosmo. The end result is a very respectable 0-60mph time of 4.5 seconds, which is less than half the time a stock model would take. If all the Deloreans were as quick as this one and looked as good thanks to the paint job, the boss might not have had to resort to a bungled drug deal to try and save the company.
