Subaru BRZ rear wheel drive - WHY?
 

I did a bit of research on line and found this on Subaru website...which in my books is absolute BS especially:

"Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive is not just about driving all four wheels! Of far more significance and importance is the low height Boxer engine, transmission and drive line all being symmetrically positioned on the vehicle centre line. Well balanced weight distribution with the heaviest components, namely the power unit and transmission, positioned low in the body for a low centre of gravity is one of the most significant design enhancements that can be made to improve vehicle handling and stability.
The Subaru BRZ has all of these important attributes in spades. In fact it was to further improve weight distribution and obtain an even lower centre of gravity that the engineers decided to sacrifice the advantages of All-Wheel Drive."
LInk to the full article: http://subaru.com.au/brz/key-feature...ar-wheel-drive

We all know that Subaru rejected this project at the begining, it is even documented on Wikipedia and also mentioned by Tada San and Sasaki San in thei live interview:

Originally, Subaru had rejected the plans of a rear wheel drive sports coupe, due to the rear wheel drive set up, and did not want to be part of the project, predominantly selling all wheel drive vehicles. However, Subaru did plan to provide the engine. Eventually the project came to a 6 month halt and was suspended before being revived again. Toyota eventually invited journalist and Subaru engineers to a vehicle test of its first 2008 prototype to show what it was capable of, which is believed to be one reason that Subaru changed their minds, being impressed with what they saw. This prototype led to the development of the FT-86 which was revealed in 2009.

HMMMM!

What you posted clearly explains what happened.

They saw how good the car was without AWD.

So what is your point, a troll? This has been discussed to death before the car even came out...

I wouldn't have bought it if it was AWD. I wanted a RWD sports car, plain and simple. If I wanted AWD, I would have bought a WRX or STi.

But yes, this topic has been BEATEN TO DEATH!

Less fun in an AWD car unless it's got WRC like horsepower to do 4WD donuts & burnouts. ;) Still love the AWD idea though, especially when it rains !

i have 0 interest in awd, i know it has some advantages but i prefer a car thats more fun to drive, if i was looking to break records i would want dct and awd like a gtr

don't want AWD due to the extra weight and complexity.

and RWD is more fun (for me)!!

AWD with a FA20 will be too slow and miss the point completely. and if they put a turbo in then they have created the new WRX/STI.

Highly doubt I would have considered the car if it was AWD.

Ok, lets try again for the slow one!
 

No offence buddy, but if you would've read the whole article you would've gotten the point. But, so I save you the effort of doing so, I will put it in a nice, easy to understand sentece for you: Subaru made it sound like their engineers came up with the RWD concept instead of simply mentioning something alog the lines of "due to colaboration with Toyota which was the brain behind the 86 concept, we (Subaru) had to agree that this car will benefit more from a sales point of view as well as driving experience to have RWD". There!

And let me guess: Subaru engineers didnt know how fun a RWD car is and Toyota had to step in to show them? I mean there are several tuners out there offering kits to convert Subaru and Mitsi from AWD to RWD.

Marketing 101.

/thread

Pointless thread

Slap a turbo and AWD on to a BRZ and the car would be absolute perfection. Basically, it would be a WRX without the ugly styling!

BTW, there's PLENTY of fun to be had with a good handling AWD car.

sorry, slap AWD on the BRZ and it will become a WRX/STI because the AWD drive train won't fit the BRZ chassis. so engine has to raise/move forward and body style will change accordingly.

slapping a turbo on the BRZ on the other hand is a great idea.......

The FT-86 concept was riding on a modified Subaru Impreza platform.