The 2026 Winter Olympic Games are on right now, and being racing enthusiasts, we’re all tuning in for the closest thing to car racing: the Bobsled events. Bobsledding requires inch-perfect collaboration between human and machine, the podium is often separated by hundredths of a second, and crashes can (and do) happen. Yeah, a bobsled is basically a car, and this sport is basically racing. Back in 2018 Subaru and Prodrive built an actual car with an actual engine, plugged rally champ Mark Higgins behind the wheel, and let him loose on the St. Moritz–Celerina Olympia Bob Run. Now that’s an Olympic sport I’d pay money to see!
In case you aren’t familiar with the course, it’s actually the birthplace of bobsledding. It’s a one-mile course in Switzerland which descends down the face of a mountain a full 426 feet through a 19-turn sinewy route. You’ve probably seen the famous Horse-Shoe turn, pictured above, which features a steeply banked hairpin turn putting bobsleds (and Subarus) nearly vertical. While negotiating the Horse-Shoe, bobsledders experience around 5G of force on their bodies.
Yeah, throw pro-level drivers in identically-prepared rally cars and shove them down an ice luge at full speed. I’m sure a lot of sheet metal would be bent in the process, but it would be worth it.
Fun fact for car nerds, the final curve on the course is Portago Corner, so named for Alfonso, Marquis de Portago, who took a medal in the two-man bobsled event shortly before his death at the 1957 Mille Miglia, as depicted in the 2023 Michael Mann film “Ferrari.” The Marquis de Portago, born Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Ángel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, was a Ferrari F1 driver, a jockey, pilot, and bobsledder.
Anyway, back to the Subaru.
What about the car?
So, now that we know the course, what about the car? The WRX STI in question is a mostly stock example with some chassis strengthening modifications, safety equipment for the driver, a small 10-liter fuel cell, stiffer suspension, and upgraded brakes to give the car better bite in cold conditions. The team tried to keep the car nice following its run by fitting it with extra bumper and door guards, but those were ripped off the car immediately at the first turn.
The biggest change from stock, and the one that made the most difference while running on ice, was the addition of special anti-puncture rally tires. These are narrower tires than would have been on a stock STI of the time, but that’s helpful on snow and ice, especially when each tire has been fitted with about 400 tungsten carbide studs. These little metal studs help the Subaru’s all-wheel drive put every single horsepower to the ground. Grip is incredibly important on ice, of course.
After Higgins sprinted from the top to the bottom of the course, hitting seemingly every wall along the way, he flipped the car around and headed right back up the course, slightly worse for wear. It’s been a while since a major automaker has done something quite as ridiculous and over-the-top as this stunt. Then again, this was kind of a swan song for Subaru toward the end of WRX STI production, so perhaps it was the outrageous street-homologated rally car that urged Subaru to do wild stunts, and not the other way around.
Hopefully whatever next-generation STI that gets made will be used by Subaru, perhaps with assistance from Prodrive, to do outrageous stunts again.
