BRZ Canyon Carving
 

Finally, I had the chance to take the BRZ (just us two) for a night out. After the movie, I told the wife I'd like to take it for a short ride through our back yard on Mulholland. I'm relatively familiar with the stretch (for Socal folks, this is between Topanga Canyon and Las Virgenes) having taken many cars through here over the past 20 years. This section has relatively fast sweeping corners but a less than smooth surface. This is my brief summary: The BRZ is one sharp handler, it's steering is very precise and in combination with the bright HID, I was able to push through at a very good pace. I did have to go +0 on low beam (there were minimal cars at 1am) and high beam most of the run, a necessity at the speed I was going. The power was a bit lacking but I find it refreshing that it did not overcome the handling capabilities of the vehicle. The last car I used to run through here quite often was my e46 M3 which I find very regularly brings me to a momentum where I need to rapidly choke off speed before I get into the curve. The BRZ, perhaps it sits lower, gave me a lot more confidence and I did not have to white knuckle as much. Though I do have to deal with sweaty palms in drives like this. This brings me to the only downer of this drive. While the BRZ's handling was superb, I find the car's lightweight and/or suspension causes me to do more correction on a line than would the much heavier M3. It's not a scientific comparison by any means but I don't recall the M bouncing as much or getting the bump/slip sensation that I get with the BRZ when flying through the corners. Naturally it's the combination of the speed and the bumpier road surface and we've seen the shaking/vibration of the car chassis in car races. I cannot but help wonder, aside from being slower, how the handling would have been if the BRZ was heavier. Still, the BRZ is best value-for-money purchase I've made in a looooong time. Suffice to say, if anything were to happen to this one, I'm going out there and re-purchasing another !! Coming from this fickle-minded self, that's big praise.

Thanks for the review! I live in Orane County and will also do that same drive in a few weeks once I'm done breaking in my new BRZ. Did you turn traction control off or leave it on?

Oh never. That would be suicidal. As it is, I'm a little jittery about the less than grippy stock tires slipping in the midst of powering through a corner. That's not a lot of room left the very minute one of the tires touches gravel.

If you went a bit further and took it down Decker Rd, you'd find that the car feels wide - but there's no lack of power when you're doing 15-30mph through blind hairpin turns.

That said, the ride is great - even hitting a pothole mid corner - it doesn't upset the car's balance and leave you sawing at the steering wheel for control. Just tracks right through.

Mullholland is fun and pretty smooth, but you have to go "too fast" to really push the car and have fun. Still a nice drive though.

Yeap, I do the Mulholland section between Virgenes and Kanan often as well. It has pretty some tight turns and is all uphill towards Kanan.

I guess I may be carrying more speed as I don't recall doing as much line correction as I did with my previous M3.

I agree. Similar experience with my C350 vs. BRZ. The Benz has great steering and it is really easy to go fast on "country" roads without correcting much -- it just crushes the potholes. The BRZ is much livelier and provides another, completely different kind of fun -- but in my experience it requires corrections (especially on poor-quality roads) where the MB is just unperturbed.

I remember doing mulholland a few month back after breaking in my BRZ and I pushed it a good deal to the point of a few drifts, the car was just remarkable in handling the tight turns. I havent had much experience with well tuned cars but with the BRZ it was just so much fun.