Remember the days when the colour of a car used to grab your attention? You’d only need a fleeting glimpse but it would be enough for the internal database to run a quick search and immediately download the answer: a Scarlet Rossa Corsa Ferrari; a British Racing Green Jaguar; a Championship White Honda Type-R; a Guards Red 911; a Purple TVR; a Papaya Orange McLaren. Each shade has meaning. It stirs a range of emotions and pulls at the heartstrings of anyone with octane in their veins.

Now the motoring landscape is a sea of silver and greys, or silver-grey. Even a modern Ferrari looks best in dark Tour de France Blue. Where has the imagination gone? Lost in a tidal wave of PCP resale fear? It’s a sad time indeed when the torchbearer for a creative palette is the Fiat 500 city-car-slash-motoring handbag. Sure, the odd Lamborghini slips through the net, but little else.

Making my way across the West Pennine Moors towards today's photoshoot location, it only takes a split-second flash of Sonic Blue before the database nearly crashes with the weight of expectation. It's a famous Subaru metallic – so charged with energy that it positively leaps out against the backdrop of dark green and browns, like I’ve just donned some 3-D glasses in an IMAX cinema. Hairs stand up on my arms and I can feel myself getting giddy. 

Suddenly, I’m transported back to a different time. A time when ‘race on Sunday, sell on Monday’ still had credence. One of Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Tommy Makkinen that led to a perfect storm of four-wheel drifts and grey imports. One of street fights with Mitsubishi Evo’s and savaging anything this side of a 911 Turbo from point A to point B.

It was a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle dust-up with no quarter given or asked for. Mitsubishi spat out another Evolution; Subaru responded with a new wing and some intercooler spray. The fact that both were limited by the gentleman's agreement between Japanese manufacturers restricting maximum power to 276bhp meant all the effort went into the chassis – and how we reaped the rewards. 

The standard 214bhp Impreza Turbo had already established itself as a legend in its own lifetime in the UK and special editions, like the Terzo, Catalunya and later RB5, added 237bhp stardust with the performance pack. But, over in the land of the rising sun, was a treasure chest of high-boost, big-wing specials with tightened gear ratios and strengthened, two-door bodyshells. People always want what they can’t have – and the specialist importers were only too happy to oblige.

Subaru UK dangled a carrot in the form of the 22B, but only brought a meagre 16 to Blighty – although the consensus suggested it was too stiff for our roads anyway. Eyeing up a bigger slice of the pie, Subaru drafted in Prodrive – the Banbury-based concern behind Subaru’s multiple WRC championships and the RB5 – and tasked them with producing the ultimate homegrown Impreza with a JDM matching output.

The resulting P1 might lack the finishing iconic touch of gold alloy wheels, but it still rocks every square inch of its WRC pedigree. Pulling into the designated car park meeting spot, pleasantries are in order but my mind is distracted, absorbing the endless motorsport details. There’s a brutalist appeal to the P1 – bollocks to the form, all praise the function. Peter Stevens of McLaren F1 fame may have been drafted in to style the P1 but he ultimately spent his time minutely refining the aerodynamics – the P1 requires three fewer horsepower to hit 100mph.

You wonder how he did it with such a comical rear wing – jutting out from the boot lid like the Blackpool tower against the distant Lancashire skyline. It doesn’t even look like it should belong on a car of this size – yet somehow the deeper chin spoiler and fat arches manage to balance it out – visually lowering the car, despite the rally car ride height.