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If you were on the Isle of Man for the TT, it wasn’t hard to notice that Subaru was the official car sponsor of the event. Beyond the bevy of billboards, signs, and strategically parked cars, every race or practice session was preceded and concluded by the Course Inspection car, or cars as it was this past fortnight. With no less than four vehicles making the rounds around the ~38 mile Mountain Course, the idea was pretty simple: more cars = more exposure, and it doesn’t hurt that it means more seats for VIPs and the like.

Subaru also got its money’s worth this year, as there was also a series of Subaru exhibition laps, where Manx-born rally driver Mark Higgins took a Subaru Impreza WRX STI on a flying-lap around the TT course, in an effort to break the four-wheeled vehicle record. Higgins did so on the very first day, and by the end of the week had posted a top time of 19:56.7, which works out to be an average speed of 113 mph.

This shattered the 21-year-old record set by Tony Pond by nearly two minutes (22:09:01), and of course got the interwebs talking about Subaru. Things almost went a different way though, as flying down Ago’s Leap, Higgins and passanger Chris Cantle had a 150 mph moment. Watch what Higgins called “the moment of his life” after his jump.

Back in 2009 we fell in love with the Kickboxer concept by Ian McElroy, who taught himself some SolidWorks and dreamt of a motorcycle powered by a turbocharged Subaru WRX engine. Well McElroy is back with two variations on his original Kickboxer design: one with a diesel motor (also sourced from Subaru), along with an all-wheel drive model.

To make the AWD configuration work, McElroy employed a dual-chain drive design that uses a jack shaft, idler sprocket, and a drive axle with a U-joint. While the original Kickboxer was designed in the 3D modeling software to be precise enough to produce, we’re not sure about all of the engineering behind McElroy’s AWD design (that’s a polite way of saying this author was a social science major in college), but the idea is certainly intriguing.

The diesel Kickboxer though, it’s so crazy it just might work…we’ll just have to wait for someone to build one. Renders galore after the jump.

What you see above is the work of one Ian McElroy. It’s a render, done in SolidWorks, of a concept motorcycle that has a Subaru WRX motor at its core. With twin-intercoolers, underseat turbocharger, and a hub-steering chassis, the KickBoxer, as McElroy calls it, is an impressive looking machine, but what’s most impressive is that Ian didn’t know a lick of SolidWorks before he set out to make this design. Photos and spec’s after the jump.

Possibly the best car show on television…ever, Top Gear has been at it again. This time the boys have sent Capt. Slow, James May, out to an airport to meet rally driver Ken Block and his Subaru Impreza rally car for a little Sunday drive.

Queue a few well-timed turns, some great photography, and toss Ricky Carmichael into the mix to see what happens. While not quite our area of focus, we thought any gearhead would appreciate this find.