Hoonigan might have had a troubling time over the past few years, but another Gymkhana video is on its way. And, Travis Pastrana has a new weapon in the form of a Subaru Brat, known as the Subaru Brataroo 9500 Turbo. In a new video, Hoonigan breaks down the process and some of the technology of this piece of automotive insanity, including a Subaru Boxer engine with over 600 horsepower that winds all the way out to 9,000 rpm. But things really get creative with the aerodynamics. There’s no choice but to get creative, because trucks are about as aerodynamic as bricks.
Of course, this isn’t really a Brat. It’s a new race car with a Brat-shaped body. Under the bodywork is a bespoke tubular race car chassis, engine, and transmission built by Subaru’s motorsport division. But, that bodywork is of a pickup truck, which means, as Hoonigan co-founder Brian Scotto points out, is “not made to fly.” Subaru, though, is pretty damn good at active aerodynamics as we saw from the epic Hoonigan Huckster.
The active aerodynamics package opens its account with a pop-out rear wing. Not a pop-up, a pop-out – it extends up and rises out of what would be the tailgate of the truck. The wing is also changeable, so the aero can be tailored to how the truck is being used, whether that’s close control, high-speed drifting, or a huge jump. And of course, there’s going to be a huge jump. Travis Pastrana will be driving, after all. The wing can even get wider as it extends.
Kenny From The Block takes his Kill All Tires motto seriously.
To help the car fly through the air with stability, there are two sections of four motorized flaps, one section for each wing, that the driver can control. They are programmable, and at full reach, they are so steep they could be used as air brakes. They even have a dance mode in the programming. The important thing, however, is that the driver can control the aero while in the air to alter the attitude of the car.
That brings us to arguably the coolest, cutest touch in the whole car. The engineers repurposed an actual Subaru Brat climate control unit to control the active aero from the cockpit.
We learn from the video that Pastrana wanted to do a Brat for a while, but it wasn’t instantly a slam dunk from the discussions that involved Subaru. The first inclination is to always look at the latest new cars, obviously to promote the newest products. For this Gymkhana, other older Subies were suggested, including the bug-eyed Subaru WRX and even the Subaru SVX.
Subaru’s marketing manager for the motorsport division says that the decision to do a Brat wasn’t driven by data or trends or anything like that. We believe that it wasn’t a data-driven decision, but Scotto says that “Subaru was all of a sudden super heavy on doing the Brat.” We’re not going to read too much into that, but small trucks are making a comeback, and the Brat is a car-culture favorite, particularly in the US and Australia.
Active aerodynamics has become a key aspect of performance car technology in recent years, but a relatively unknown brand took the tech skyward.
If you’re a fan of Hoonigan and the Gymkhana series, the latest adventure starring the Subaru Brataroo 9500 Turbo and Travis Pastrana will drop on December 9, 2025. Considering the brief teaser included with this Brataroo deep-dive shows everything from cities to lakes, deserts, racing at Bathurst, and the original Mad Max Ford Falcon Interceptor, we suspect most of you are already fans.
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