Honda S2000 is probably a great example. Yes, the entry price is higher, but it also had a big thing going for it; it came out well before the current turbo DI era [so the pressure for mega-huge power from the internet fan-bois wasn't there], and it had the massive bragging rights of being by far the highest HP/L n/a production engine with a killer 9k RPM redline. The engine sold the car, but it helped that it was a convertible, dead sexy, and was a blast to drive.
As I see it, the engine in the FR-S isn't the primary selling point; it's its low CoG location, flat-4 quirkiness, and "me-too" Nurburgring chassis tuning. IMO those points aren't as easy to get excited about as what the S2000 did when it arrived. Nevertheless, the S2000 sold consistently in the tens of thousands a year for quite a while. If the FR-S/BRZ combo can match that, it'll be a success, IMO.
I also dug up an old press tidbit on the Oizumi plant the cars will be built at.
Here's the full article.
Quote:
The plant at Gunma, which currently has a build capacity of 80,000 vehicles a year, will be upgraded and output will be almost doubled to around 150,000 units annually. Oizumi will be primarily responsible for building the new sports cars planned and designed by Toyota and developed by Fuji Heavy, namely the Toyota FT-86 and Subaru 0846, which is set to begin sales as early as spring next year, reports say.
Though the lineup is as yet unfinalised, the plant is also set to build other models in the Subaru lineup, such as the Legacy, the Impreza and the Forester, to fully utilise production capacity.
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So, they're spending $500 Million USD on bumping up capacity by 70k/year, but adding the FR-S/BRZ, Legacy, Impreza, and Forester to the lines. If we divide by 4 the extra capacity, that puts the FR-S/BRZ right at 17.5k/year, which seems plausible when compared to the S2000 production numbers.