[BA9092]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

Greetings everyone. After shopping for a car for the past year, including posting questions here to which many people gave very helpful responses, I finally bought a BRZ this week, a red 2019 Limited (6 speed of course). We’re now a 3 Subaru family – the BRZ joins a WRX (my ‘practical’ daily driver), and my wife’s Crosstrek.

I’ve been a hard-core car guy my whole life. I’m old school (and just plain old… early(-ish) 60’s), and have owned over 100 cars in my life. I grew up with the classic ‘sports cars’ of the 60’s and 70’s, MBG, Triumph, Opel GT, Fiat 124, Karmann-Ghia, Sunbeam Alpine, first generation RX-7. I owned many of them back then. As I coast into the final laps of life and being able to enjoy a small sports car with a stick, I’ve been looking for something that would capture the soul and fun of those old-tyme sports cars. The BRZ does it for me.

There’s a fair amount of dissing the car online. I’ve found that most of the critics have never owned or even driven a BRZ. The internet brings out a lot of armchair experts and bench racers.

The BRZ is not a “numbers” car. If you want to brag about 0-60 or quarter mile times down at the gym or bar, it’s not for you. It’s for people who care about sheer driving fun, about getting goose bumps from a car being hard-wired straight into your central nervous system, of feeling your hands directly connected to the road in a way that few other current production new cars can match.

The usual carping is about ‘not enough power’. Yeah, I wish it had another 50-ish hp and 50-ish ft-lb of torque. But the reality is the BRZ already is so much faster and vastly more capable than any of the 60’s/70’s sports cars ever were.

Most of those 4 cylinder sports cars at the time had around 100 hp. 205 hp was an impossible dream that no one even talked about. A souped-up ‘race’ engine might put out 125-150 hp. 205 hp was unimaginable back then, even with the primitive turbochargers of the day (unless you had the bucks to get a Jaguar or something high end). I plan to do a few modest mods to my BRZ, but after just a few days of driving, I have to say, the power is enough to be fun, enough to be satisfying, and enough to get in trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing.

It doesn’t have a mountain of torque. So what? Formula 1 race cars aren’t known for being able to pull tree stumps out at idle either, and few people accuse them of not being fun to drive. In the BRZ, you have to actually know how to use a clutch pedal and shift lever.

It just feels special to drive. Mazda uses the phrase ‘jinba ittai’, ‘horse and rider as one’, to describe the Miata. The Miata is a great car (I’ve had a couple), but I think it applies just as much to the BRZ.

I looked at a wide range of cars before buying this one. The current ND Miata was close, and is also a blast to drive. But for me it’s just a little too small. Mazda should be commended for not bloating the car and actually shrinking it, but I think they went a bit too far. I’m not humongous, but at 6’0” and 200 lbs, I’m ‘not small’. With two people in the Miata, it just felt borderline cramped and confining. I wanted to be able to take trips in a sports car, and the Miata was just a little too small for us. If it was 10% or even 5% bigger, I might have gone for it.

The 370Z was also a close contender. It has the same analog feel as the BRZ, but with a much more powerful, torquey engine. That 3.7 liter VQ V6 is a great motor. But the BRZ won in every other department – looks, interior space, visibility, handling, and comfort. The 370Z was a fantastic engine, but the rest of the car didn’t quite measure up to the BRZ.

About 10 years ago I had a S2000 and RX8. In weak moments, I stupidly sold each of them. The S2000 because living in the Pacific Northwest there were about 3 days a year when you could use a convertible, and the RX8 because I was fed up with the usual Wankel engine headaches. Big mistakes in both cases. I looked for low-mileage, nice condition, affordable examples of each of them, but they don't grow on trees.

I also looked long and hard at just getting an old 60’s/70’s sports car, reliving my mis-spent and wasted youth. But the reality of those cars is different from the fantasy and memories. When I drove those cars back in the 70’s and 80’s (when they were about 10 years old), the reality was that they were rusted-out, bondo-filled heaps that needed constant tinkering to stay running. After looking at a few dozen for sale, it was apparent they haven’t gotten any better in the 40 years since then. Most of the ones on the market seem to be even more bodged-up back-yard ‘restorations’ than the ones I drove decades ago, or were correctly restored with matching mega-buck prices, several multiples of what a new BRZ cost – and they still had primitive heating, no safety equipment to speak of, and don’t perform anywhere near as well as a new BRZ for a fraction of the price.

Instead of griping about how 'underpowered' the BRZ is, I would think true gearheads would recognize it for what it is - a gift from Subaru and Toyota. For the few thousand a year that they sell, they can't be making much money on it.

So, to all those armchair experts out there who say they want a pure, old-school, naturally aspirated, RWD, manual transmission sports car that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I suggest, go out and drive a BRZ or 86 while you can. I’ll eagerly await the next generation car, and if it’s ‘better’, I’ll buy one. But who knows? Someone at Toyota might decide that there’s not enough of a business case to be made for a manual transmission (like they did with the Supra). For those that don't buy a BRZ/86, I think they should just shut up and don't complain that there aren't any cars like it around.

Thank you very much to everyone who gave such helpful and much appreciated responses and comments to my questions here.

First of all, welcome and congrats!

I loved reading this! So jealous of your past cars and experiences.

Granted, my '18 BRZ is only my 15th car...all manuals except for two. I'm in my late 40's and have bought most of my cars new. Yes, I know, a big financial no-no. Lol. Especially since the longest I've owned a car is 4 years (2 months, the shortest!)

I also share most of the same feelings and views on cars. I do have a huge photography and travel habit which take up most of my financial resources (along with a mortgage), so I don't dig too deep into automotive exploration, sadly. My dream car is still an NA1 NSX but the good ones are still over $60k!

I too had a 2002 Suzuka Blue S2000. I loved it. But it wasn't a good daily driver. I've met and continue to meet people who think I'm a dumbass for selling it, but I never tracked it. And it's DEFINITELY a track purposed car, in my opinion, as I've later learned. Way more so in stock form than a Miata. I thought the Miata would be more "livable" so I got an NC with the Power Retractable Hard Top in 2010. Still, I did a few mods that would improve on it, but it was still a huge compromise for a daily driver. I never want to "daily" a boring car and I can't afford to buy a separate track-only one either.

In between, I've been through Mustang V8's (the 2011 Coyote 5.0 engine rocked! Everything else sucked! Lol), Hondas, Acuras, VW GTIs and Golf Rs. All great! Each with their faults and attributes.

I think you made the right choice as I also owned a 2013 370Z. That's one car I loved which came close to handling and balance of the BRZ and the S2000. Granted, it's got more power, but also more weight. The car did feel a lot heavier by comparison though. Not as precise as the BRZ nor the S2000 either.

My current BRZ feels like the perfect balance between the S2000 and the 370Z. I'm also glad Toyota and Subaru joined together to make this car. Quite a few Toyota fan boys hate Subaru and vice versa, but this car wouldn't have been made if it weren't for both companies taking the huge leap. Especially since most car companies (besides Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren) only make money from SUVs, CUVs and sedans nowadays. Producing a sports car from the ground up takes a huge amount of money and risk. And for less than $30k, we've got a pure bargain sports car.

I can go in about the horsepower race...yes, all cars could use more power. Duh. (I plead guilty of actually being in the process of installing a supercharger! Lol.) But road conditions, construction, speed limits and increasing traffic all inhibit that lust in real world daily driving. Sure, we can go to the track, add more power, mod it extensively and it's made just for that too, but on a commute, daily driver or even a weekend drive up public canyon roads, all the extra power is superfluous. I'd rather have a balanced, proper sports car than a 500hp behemoth with numb handling.

Lastly, everyone has their reasons for wanting more power - whether to impress friends, lovers, coworkers or as Carlos Lago of Motor Trend likes to put it "compensize" is up to you. But the BRZ is a great sports car in its current iteration. I hope Subaru and Toyota continue this affordable and well-balanced recipe in the next generation. And keep the manual!