Subaru WRX STI racecar

SUBARU will tear the sheets off its eagerly awaited road-going WRX STI next week at the Detroit motorshow, but in the meantime, fans of the pink Subaru Technica International badge will be kept happy with a racing version revealed today.

The endurance racer will go head-to-head with other heavily modified road-cars during a 24-hour race at Germany’s Nurburgring in June and will be the seventh consecutive year an STI has entered the competition.

When it finally arrives, the production STI is rumoured to have a larger 2.5-litre version of the standard 2.0-litre WRX flat-four engine, but to conform to SP3T class rules, the racing STI will have to stick to the 2.0-litre capacity.

Subaru will be fighting for a third SP3T class win at the race after winning in 2011 and then again in 2012.

The STI just missed out on a hat-trick at the 2013 event, being beaten to the flag by an Audi TT-S, but fought off competition from Seats and Volkswagens to take second place in the class.

Sometimes referred to as ‘The Green Hell’ because of its punishing 20 kilometre length, the Nurburgring will test the STI’s limits of performance and reliability with 154 corners and long high-speed straights.

Four drivers – two from Japan and two Europeans - will take it in turns to pilot the Subaru over the 24-hour period, which begins on the June 21.