Long before the end of Team BMR’s successful 2015 season, in which it won the BTCC’s teams and independents crowns, it had started considering building new cars to replace its fleet of Volkswagen CCs. The team’s chief designer, Carl Faux, had already sensed the potential of Subaru models. “I was on the British Touring Car Championship Technical Working Group when we devised the NGTC regulations [to which all cars are now built],” he says. “At the time I was working for Triple Eight Racing, which was running the MG 6. The further we went down the NGTC road, I was exploring the options with different cars, and the Subaru definitely stood out – but I was in the wrong place to do anything about it until I joined BMR.”

Initially the team had a more traditionally sporty Subaru WRX STI model in mind, but this didn’t hold as much appeal for Tunnicliffe. “It would have been easy for Subaru to follow the lead of Ford and Honda and enter with its performance model, but that’s not really what we’re about,” he says. “SUVs and estates dominate our sales these days, and that’s what we need to publicise. We suggested the Levorg instead. They took a road car away, drove it, analysed it and came back to say they believed it would work well.”

As Faux delved deeper into the Levorg’s capabilities, he became increasingly encouraged. “The Levorg is essentially perfect for an NGTC,” he says. “Within the rules, it is all about the engine and the positioning of its centre of gravity. Previously, when the rules in the BTCC were freer, it was possible to engineer something trick with the suspension set-up or change something else on the car to overcome any problems. But with the NGTC rules the way they are, there is little freedom to do that because everyone has the same suspension.

“That meant that the boxer configuration of the engine plays an important part. It’s a flat engine and it carries the weight low down.”

The estate body brings further advantages. “The aerodynamic numbers from Subaru are very strong,” he says, “and even though it might not look it, it is a small car. It is narrow. And you have to remember it is rear-wheel drive. When Honda did its Civic estate BTCC car, the Tourer, that was front-wheel drive. Carrying more weight over the rear of the car is actually going to be a benefit to us. We wouldn’t have tried this programme if it had been based on a front-wheel-drive car.”