Hi everyone - been away from the forum for a little while as work is crazy getting ready for X Games in August but, here is a cool clip of our car featured on the British TV show "Top Gear". James May rode with our driver Ken Block in his car at an old air field in California. This aired in Europe last week, it will be on the program here in the US later this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RQ4wX8CGbM

I'll be around here more often after the first week in August when things slow down at work.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!!

That was great work from the Theatre of Petrol.

Quite possibly the coolest bit of video I've ever seen in my life.

Wow.

Great Vid / Car Brian. The Vermont plate on the car was really cool? We still gotta hook up this summer so i can check out that new convertable of yours.

Wow!!

damn.

the man is an artist. Absolutely insane. I have seen his other video:



I thought James was going to shit himself at the end there! The expression on his face was seriously priceless.

Great vid! GREAT driver! Your shop did awesome work on that car.

Some of the camera angles are just fantastic.

I second all of what Andy said. We see the driver and the car. We don't see the preparation that goes into making the car work as it does. Hats off to you and the rest of the crew that work on the car.

As for the production values... I hope I get to work on something that cool one day. It is beautifully produced. Practically brings a tear to the eye!

Cool video! Your shop did that car? Details?

Matthew

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I work at a Vermont SportsCar (www.vtcar.com) We are the factory Rally Team for Subaru in the US (www.rally.subaru.com). We campaign three cars in the Rally America (www.rally-america.com) championship which features different rounds of competition throughout the US. We also compete in the X Games. Last year we also competed in the WRC, the World Rally Series. We still do occasional events overseas. Our drivers are Travis Pastrana, Ken Block and Dave Mirra.

It takes anywhere from 800 to 1000 man hours to build each car depending on the spec. They start as stock road going Subaru Impreza's. We strip them to bare shells then strengthen the chassis, install roll cage, paint then reassemble using a combination of stock and race parts. Here's a time lapse of one of our cars being built (at the end I'm the guy in the white hat):

http://www.rally.subaru.com/timelapse.html

I've been working in Rally Racing for the past 13 years formally for the factory Hyundai team and now the Subaru team. I was a mechanic for about 10 years, I also did quite a bit of paint work. Then I moved into marketing for a year, and now run the parts department while working with/learning a lot about the accounting side of things (I was in College for accounting when I started with the Hyundai team). I also did a fair share of restoration work along the way (the owner started out in high end restoration work).

Happy to answer any questions about the cars but, I don't bring up work much here after all this is a Corvette forum!

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I've definitely got to check out your C5 soon!

There is a Corvette show in Stowe every summer I was going to see if you wanted to go but, I completely spaced as it was in early June!! Maybe next year?

If you get down to Burlington be sure to give me a call and stop in! If not I will have to cruise up to see you this summer.

WoW! That is amazing!!