Taylor chasing new Subaru

Molly Taylor wants to drive a Subaru BRZ in the 2025 Australian Rally Championship, but there is a major obstacle to her sports car dream – money.

It will cost around $500,000 to scratch-build a BRZ with a turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive suitable to challenge the Skoda and Toyota Rally2 cars that currently dominate the series.

Taylor, who is also a front-runner in the Extreme E championship, ran out of puff in this year’s ARC driving a production class Subaru WRX.

Now she is doing the research to potentially turn her dream into reality.

“It’s an idea in my head. We want to get the conversation started,” Taylor revealed to Auto Action.

This is just kind of like a thought bubble in my head. It’s not official or endorsed by Subaru Australia.

“If we want to compete for outright wins we would have to do something like that. I think it would be mega.

“The problem is that I would need $500,000 to build it. If someone comes up with the cash, then yes I’d do it.”

Taylor has been driving a WRX owned by Tasmanian businessman Craig Brooks, but their deal has just ended as Taylor returns to Europe to continue in Extreme E.

“It’s an amazing car for what it is. We’ve been able to get some third fastest times overall,” she said.

The BRZ dream is not totally crazy, as Tommi Makinen built a Toyota 86 to a similar specification when he was head of the GR team in the World Rally Championship.

The car even came to Australia and was driven by Makinen and Toyota supremo Akio ‘Morizo’ Toyoda ahead of Rally Australia in Coffs Harbour.

She has also spoken to Darryl Bush, the recently-retired technical chief at Neal Bates Motorsport and the man responsible for building a long-string of car.

“There is no reason why it couldn’t work. I’ve spoken to Darryl about it. With all the Rally2 cars now it would be far more cost effective to buy one of those. But Subaru doesn’t have one,” Taylor said.

But her main focus for now is on Extreme E and the latest leg in Portugal.

“We’re leading the points. I would like to say there is a high chance of another championship.

“It’s more competitive than it’s ever been, but if everything goes well we’ll be in contention.”

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