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Subaru Rally Team Wins FIA World Rally Championship

7 November 1997

Subaru Rally Team Wins FIA World Rally Championship; Subaru Hat Trick

    CHERRY HILL, N.J., Nov. 7 -- The 555 Subaru World Rally Team
has clinched their third consecutive FIA World Rally Championship for
Manufacturers with one rally remaining.  This hat trick was secured with a win
in Australia on November 2nd by the crew of Scottish driver Colin McRae and
his Irish co-driver Nicky Grist.
    The World Rally Championship is a fourteen event series run in Europe,
Africa, South America, Asia and Australia.  The season runs from January in
Monte Carlo to the season finale in Great Britain in November.  Rallies run in
all weather conditions from the worst winter has to offer to the stifling heat
of the African desert.  And courses run on roads where conditions vary from
freeway smooth asphalt to deeply rutted jungle trails.  International rallying
tests the endurance of both man and machine.
    Subaru competes in rally racing because it is the only international form
of motorsports based on production vehicles.  It is the rally racing
environment that serves as Subaru's laboratory for developing the Subaru
All-Wheel Driving System.  The Subaru All-Wheel Driving System features a
horizontally opposed engine, all-wheel drive and a rally-tuned long stroke
four wheel independent suspension.
    Subaru of America, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fuji Heavy
Industries, Ltd. of Japan.  Headquartered near Philadelphia, the company
markets and distributes Subaru vehicles, parts and accessories through a
network of nearly 630 franchised dealers across the United States.  All Subaru
vehicles sold in the U.S. feature the Subaru All-Wheel Driving System.  And
all Legacy models sold in the U.S., including the Outback, are produced at the
company's American manufacturing plant, Subaru-Isuzu Automotive, Inc., near
Lafayette, Ind.

SOURCE  Subaru of America, Inc.

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