Okay, it’s quite obvious that I’m a massive motorsport enthusiast. Karting, F1, Touring Cars, Rallying, Moto GP or anything else that goes fast stirs my passion. But out of all of these sports there is only one that I go out of my way to actually watch away from the comfort of my living room, and that’s rallying.

Even before Nigel Mansell’s unique driving drew me towards F1 I remember with great fondness the fire-spitting Group B rally car era. Lancia Delta S4s, Audi Quattro S1s, Peugeot 205 T16s, Ford RS200s and my personal favourite the MG Metro 6R4. There is no doubting the talent of F1 drivers, but rally drivers don’t just take the biscuit but buy McVitties in a hostile take over.

But that era was from my childhood. By the time I was of an age where I could actually drive myself a new car appeared in the infancy of what would become a legend both on the stages and on the road. A car that I fell in love with immediately not just because of what it could do but because it was driven by my hero Colin McRae. The Subaru Impreza.

Since it was introduced there has been a mind scrambling number of road models produced, each one seemingly more outrageous than the last. The P1, 22B, WRX, STI, UK270 and WR1 to name but a few. But in 1999 there was a model that was introduced that was the absolute pinnacle of what I believe the Impreza stands for. Supercar performance combined with reliability, practicality and value for money. The more extreme the Impreza became the more this vision was blurred, but one combined the perfect blend and became my dream car. Keep your Porsches and your Ferraris, I give you the Subaru Impreza RB5.

Named after the late Richard Burns who drove it to his only World Rally Championship, the RB5 was the car I was determined to own, and it's taken nine years of purring over it for me to be in the position to be able to buy one. I struggled to justify its purchase before now, but for our 30th birthdays myself and a friend decided to make the milestone especially memorable by doing two things we'd always wished to do. Drive our favourite cars around the Nurburgring.

There were only ever 444 of them ever built and it took months of searching and head scratching before I stumbled upon one of the best examples of the car I'd seen, incredibly only half a mile away from my house. In January 2008 I became the extremely proud owner of RB5 build No.390.

In my time with 390 I had a lifetime of fun, but at a fully justifiable expense. The first job I had to do was fit a new clutch, but since then it's had new CV joint boots, new PIAA front fog lights, new front tyres, new brake calipurs and a new set of RB5 stickers. I did everything that could possibly need doing to the car to ensure that it remained as fresh as the day it rolled out of the Prodrive factory in Banbury.

My first adventure with 390 was to take a trip with some mates to Santa Pod and experience legally how quick this machine launches off the line. It's not in any way a drag racer, but it destroyed quicker cars purely because it could get away from the start line so quickly.

Then in March of 2008 came the justification for buying it. The road trip to the Nurburgring in Germany, a 1,200 mile road trip over three days via Paris.

Despite the huge task of driving cross continent with little break in the miles, and the small matter of a full beans assualt on the Nurburgring 390 returned unscathed and hadn't missed a beat. With the exception of a vast amount of super unleaded it didn't need any fluid topping up, and in fact I've never had to top up the fluids. It was a truly wonderful car.

In June it was asked to represent the RB5 Owners Club at the Chatsworth Rally Show in Derbyshire, and is seen here with members of the RB320 Owners Club.

August saw 390 take part in a truly unique event, the Colin McRae Gathering, a wonderful celebration of Colin McRae who so terribly was killed in a helicopter accident a year previously. The event drew well over a thousand Subaru Imprezas to the Prodrive factory in Banbury before a convoy led by Vicki Butler Henderson headed to the Prodrive test track just outside of Warwick.

At Warwick the cars formed a mosaic spelling out Colin McRae's name, plus a Scottish flag, in what was a world record breaking effort. The event was filmed and shown on Channel 5's Fifth Gear program

The event was truly superb and while being a wondeful memorial to the great Colin McRae it also means that 390 and myself are World Record Breakers!

Few cars have created such an impact on both motorsport and real world motoring, and I was proud to be the part of the experience.