Prodrive

Prodrive is an auto vehicle engineering company that designs, builds and races cars for companies like Aston Martin and Subaru. The company is based in the market town of Banbury, United Kingdom. The company was founded by Ian Parry and David Richards in 1984. David Richards is presently the chairman of Prodrive. Prodrive Ltd has its Automotive Technology division located in the county town of Warwick. This division assists in the designing of road cars as well as provides consultation on engineering for a number of car manufacturers. Prodrive is popular for its association with the World Rally Championship along with the Subaru World Rally Team.

Prodrive’s initial tryst with motor racing began with running rally teams for BMW, MG and Porsche and later diversified into running BMW's M3 and touring cars in the British Touring Car Championship. They have also run campaigns for companies like Ford, Honda and Alfa Romeo. 49 percent of Prodrive was bought by an investment group called Apax Partners in 1999. Prodrive developed its own Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello in 2001 and entered the sports car racing scene. Prodrive took over an automobile engineering, tuning and coach building company called ‘Tickford’ in 2001. The company purchased the racing team called Glenn Seton Racing in 2003. It launched its two-seater sports car called Prodrive P2 in 2006.