Prodrive, the motorsport consultancy, is expected to start talks soon that could turn it into the biggest British-owned carmaker, albeit in a joint venture partnership with Subaru of Japan.
Prodrive, led by David Richards, the former Formula One team principal, is one of the world's largest and most successful motorsport businesses.
It has developed a fully working prototype sports car designed to suit production processes capable of building 5,000 units or more a year, at an envisaged price of £40,000 (€58,400) in Britain.
The car, designated P2 and with Ferrari-matching performance, was unveiled at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre this week during Autosport International, the motorsport industry's annual show.
No formal talks are under way yet but Prodrive, based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, is understood to have kept its long-time Japanese carmaker partner closely informed and a joint venture is seen as likely.
The P2 uses a much-modified basic body structure from Subaru's R1 small car, allied to a near-400 horsepower version of Subaru's Impreza engine and its four-wheel-drivetrain.
The working relationship between Subaru and Prodrive is already very close. Little more than a decade ago, Subaru was regarded mainly as the producer of unexciting, relatively cheap saloons and estates distinguished only by their extensive use of four-wheel-drive.
Prodrive, which employs more than 1,000 in Britain, the US, Australia and Thailand, and which next month will open a facility in China, convinced Subaru it could turn the Impreza model into a competitive car for the World Rally Championship.
Since then, the Prodrive-built Impreza has won several world championships, and the car has acquired a cult following. Subaru's image has been transformed and it is now making about 600,000 cars a year.
However, the latest versions of some of its models have come under criticism as lacking design direction. Some industry observers regard it as now increasingly in need of a new image-boosting "halo" model.
Prodrive is close to being a carmaker in its own right.
It develops and produces 100 competition cars a year for Subaru, Aston Martin and other manufacturers involved in motor sport.
The demise of MG Rover and the acquisition of the TVR sports car company by Nikolai Smolensky, the Russian entrepreneur, have left the UK-owned car industry with a handful of small, specialist car-makers such as Caterham.
Mr Richards suggested it would not be viable financially to create a full-scale production facility for the new car, although Prodrive is leaving open the possibility of UK assembly.
At the volumes envisaged, said Mr Richards, the car would lend itself better to being at least part-produced on a larger manufacturer's mainstream assembly lines.
He declined to state the size of Prodrive's investment in the project but it had been "pretty substantial for a company of this size."
The styling of the P2 was created by Peter Stevens, designer of the McLaren F1 road car.
Mr Richards said: "The purpose has been to build a fully practical car. Anyone can build a racer for the road.
"This one had to be capable of being put into production and we've thought about all the production aspects."