If you’re looking for a distraction, this video compresses the build of Travis Pastrana’s Family Huckster gymkhana car down to less than four minutes.
Built for filming of “Gymkhana 2022,” the Family Huckster is a purpose-built stunt machine styled to look like a 1983 Subaru GL wagon. It was built by Vermont SportsCar, the same shop that built Pastrana’s previous gymkhana car—the WRX STI Airslayer—as well as multiple Subaru rally cars.
Travis Pastrana’s Subaru Family Huckster gymkhana car being assembled
The video shows just how little the Family Huckster has in common with a stock GL wagon. The car is based on a bespoke tube-frame chassis, over which carbon-fiber body panels are draped. Even those are heavily massaged from stock GL wagon panels, incorporating active aerodynamic elements similar to those used on the Airslayer.
Sitting under the flat hood is a turbocharged 2.3-liter flat-4 like the one used in the Airslayer, but featuring a unique exhaust system with 3D-printed tips that exit through the passenger side front fender. Output is 865 hp, which is sent to all four wheels through a 6-speed sequential transmission.
After the car is assembled, the bare carbon fiber bodywork gets a vinyl wrap inspired by the livery of the original GL wagons Subaru built as a marketing tie-in with the U.S. ski team. That livery is one of the reasons why Pastrana chose the GL for gymkhana instead of doing another WRX build.
Pastrana’s association with Subaru extends beyond gymkhana to the American Rally Association (ARA) championship, where he’ll continue racing Vermont SportsCar-built WRX rally cars for a little while longer. However, he has announced that he will bow out of the 2023 championship, mainly due to his desire to spend more time with his family while still being able to focus on his own Nitro Rallycross series.
