The “Environmentally Friendly Rally” concept, proposed by promoters after conferring with Norwegian government officials such as current PM Jens Stoltenberg, was conveyed to the domestic and international media by a variety of methods including a Hybrid Rally Car exhibition, and the “Make Cars Green” campaign promoted by the FIA and Japanese tyre makers to develop more environmentally friendly ways of using cars. Indicators of these could be seen here and there in the service park and throughout the event grounds.

The “Subaru Cup” was also part of that concept, and quickly became a hot topic of discussion as a rally series using E85 Bio-fuel. A specially designed Subaru Cup-version Impreza WRX STI was used as the course car.

In order to carry out safety checks, three of the specially designed cars ran the course as the “Triple Zero Car”, “Double Zero Car” and “Zero Car”.

A few of the Subaru Cup Imprezas were also entered into the actual rally. Because this was a WRC event the fuel was changed to the same FIA-specified fuel as the other competing cars, but other than that the specifications were the same as in the one-make programme. Despite this, a few of the Subaru Cup cars were able to achieve 6th position or better in Group N on many of the stages, and this great potential drew a lot of attention.

Norway’s own young driver Andreas Mikkelsen, who had been desperately striving for the P-WRC podium right through to the last day, was in a full-spec Group N car this time around, but was the top Norwegian driver in his Subaru Cup car. In addition, Sveinung Bieltvedt became the Group N champion in an Impreza based upon the Subaru Cup car, with only small modifications to the dampers.

The Subaru Cup car was the shining star of this year’s WRC Rally Norway. Praised for their commitment to the environment, its promoters were presented with the “Star of the Rally” award by WRC series’ sponsor, the Abu Dhabi Tourist Bureau.