BRZ front grille mod
 

How likely is it that a simple aftermarket BRZ front grille mod will be available to replace the black plastic strip with a metal grill like the FR-S in the near future? I find the BRZ limited as pretty flawless...excluding the front fascia.....

Sigh...

the black strip is no more structurally sound as the FRS as both bumpers are made from plastic. As far as your question, very unlikely. That plastic bumper strip looks to be part of the front bumper design..aka integrated. and not a separate unit that you can mess with.

Guess we're gonna need a group buy on some JDM tuner bumpers...

If you happened to see my review of a dealer visit to a BRZ yesterday I would agree. That thing has got to go...it is fugly.
I reached up underneath and found it to be backfilled with a loose piece of styrofoam...but I didn't have the time to explore what was behind all of that. My assumption is that there's a structural member of some sort...although I hope not. If not it should be an easy replace...if so then it will need to be "covered"
I love everything about this car compared to the FRS EXCEPT that spot...I'm gonna hate having to replace the whole darn thing with an FRS bumper

You know an FR-S bumper is probably not going to directly fit because of the headlights....nobody has tried it yet.

I think the side fender piece on the BRZ is ugly too, but that is easily replaced.

Besides the bumper & mustache being one molded piece, removing the mustache will create an even bigger maw. We'll have to solve the aesthetic proportion aspect before getting the saws-all fired up. I for one don't want the front end to look even more like an Audi/Hyundai with their obscenely huge grilles.

Or forced to buy Wing's Aero kit :bellyroll:

I have to disagree. I think it can be snapped on/off. It'd be a manufacturing dilemma to have it integrated as one piece requiring it to be masked off to paint the bumper. Front grilles or black plastics on others car I've tinkered with were always secured by clips/screws.
I thought there was already a debate on the headlight fitment and we concluded that the way the bumpers wrap around the headlights (particularly the innermost corners of the headlights) are different but the shape of and the way the headlights mount are identical. It doesn't make business sense to manufacture the same looking headlights with 2 different mounting schemes. If they're going to make them different they would have made each distinct (like Levin v. Trueno).

Regarding the front plastic beam, you could carbon fiber wrap it or repaint to a metallic color or wait for aftermarket snap-on grilles to be made.

Couldn't you just paint it to match?

Cheap and dirty example with a bit of black on the inside of the lip to expand the opening visually:

http://i.imgur.com/Pqqef.jpg

i didnt like the mustache till i saw it in real life... it really doesnt look that bad, the car looks better in real life... i was astounded...

Looks like a mouth guard to me...but it is not as bad in real life as it is in photos...especially the way Subaru has it lit in that photo...they have light shining directly on the darn thing...
I am 99% sure it is not a molded part of the bumper...it even has a different texture to it.
We'll know more when we get the chance to dig into it obviously

I wish I had taken a closer pic yesterday but these show how diff it is from the rest of the bumper

Sorry, the mustache, grille, and bumper are all one molded piece. I spent considerable investigative time looking at the front bumper cover for this very reason. You can clearly see the mask tape line for the paint, and the mustache texture is very simply molded-in. There's nothing stopping anyone from having a variety of surface textures for one part.

Was this in person that you saw it? I'm not doubting you one bit, don't get me wrong. Just curious

I've seen some close up, high res photos of that area between the mustache and "colored" parts, and i could've sworn i saw some paint lines too. I'm asking because if what you're going off of is from online pictures (like me), then it's possible production brz's are different. If it's in person then i believe you.

It was in person. Look at the pics he posted from seeing it in person.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3992