Subaru BRZ: One year in review

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Once plentiful, the affordable sports car is now an endangered species. If you’re of a certain age, you’ve seen this movie before: in the 1970s, there were all sorts of fun and interesting machines from the 240Z to the MGB, and then they just sort of died out in an explosion of bigger, more luxurious offerings. Electrification doesn’t mean an end to performance, but it does mean bigger, heavier, and more expensive. Figuring it was basically the last chance to get into something rear-wheel-drive with a proper manual gearbox, I ordered a Subaru BRZ in the winter of 2021, and have now spent a year with it. Here’s how it went.

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Subaru BRZ’s competition

The previous BRZ (and the Scion/Toyota FR-S, 86, and GT86) was a flawed but brilliant machine. The fact that it was sold for over a decade is going to become even more important in the future — youthful enthusiasts need interesting used vehicles to get into car culture, and they won’t get that with a used Toyota Camry. However, almost every time the BRZ was comparison-tested against Mazda’s MX-5, it came up short. The MX-5 was built by a company who had reinvented the budget sports car back in 1989, and it had a polish the BRZ didn’t.

Like Nissan’s Z, the second-generation BRZ is a refinement of an aging platform rather than a replacement of it. But, like the MX-5, the BRZ now has that level of polish which was formerly missing. Slight bump in power for more low-end torque, a little more grip, don’t mess much with the ergonomics, and massage the styling a little.

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Check out the specs of the Subaru BRZ vs its competitors

If you want a baby Jaguar F-Type, and a better palette of colours, head right over to the Toyota dealership and spec out a GR86. Nearly identical to the BRZ, it’s a bit more playful in chassis tune, and doesn’t have the Subaru’s slightly goofy grin.

However, after many years of Subaru ownership, I’d come to expect a little less tail-happy behaviour from a daily-driver. I ordered a Sport-Tech in blue, taking delivery in the wet spring of 2022, I found the BRZ’s more-planted feel to be confidence inspiring. It was nimble, quick, and snappy to drive. Love at first steer.

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Canadian pricing of the Subaru BRZ

The $33,495 MSRP doesn’t sound that cheap, but compared to the rest of the world, Canadian BRZs are an absolute bargain. In the U.S., an equivalent Limited trim works out to above $40K when you factor in the exchange rate. The U.K. doesn’t get the BRZ, just the GR86, and when you do the currency conversion on its price, it’s more than $50,000. The BRZ slots in at $10,000 less than the average price of new car sales in Canada, and is overall about as much as a mid-trim Crosstrek. Affordable, by the standard of the market.

Each of my previous two Subarus — a WRX and an STI, both hatchbacks — were mildly tuned for added power. The STI put down a third more power than the BRZ’s 228 hp, but it did so with steering feel that bordered on Buick. The BRZ is slower but felt faster, which is what you want out of a small sports car.

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Is the Subaru BRZ a family-friendly sports car?

The big question is, would the kids fit? Answer: for now. With one in a booster and one out, the BRZ’s 2+2 layout is just barely big enough to squeeze everyone in. Carrying two adults and two kids is not really possible, but putting the passenger seat forward helps. My older daughter can tuck her feet under the driver’s seat, and it helps that I’m slightly under 5’11” and like to sit close to the wheel. But for both kids, wriggling out is a challenge.

You know what though? Kids don’t know any better. When I was a kid, my parents drove us to school in a Land Rover with a seat bolted in the rear facing backwards. The BRZ does school run duties regularly, and while every other parent seems to have a three-row crossover for two children, dropoff in the BRZ doesn’t seem to actually take any longer.

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Further, part of the idea behind buying this car is that I have always loved the idea of an MX-5, and also the idea of a classic car for vintage touring. But being able to share those experiences with both my kids is either impossible with a two-seater roadster, or risky with vintage crash ratings and a preponderance of jacked-up Dodge Rams on the road.

So, once the kids were out of school, we loaded up the BRZ’s tiny trunk with travel clothes and swimsuits and made tracks for the Rockies. (Surprisingly, while the car’s trunk is flat and shallow, it absorbs quite a bit of carefully packed luggage.)

Road trip in the Subaru BRZ

As a road-trip companion, the BRZ is noisy, crowded, and the stereo is far from powerful. Fixing each of these problems would just be turning a dial from involvement towards isolation. This car was never supposed to be a grand tourer, it’s a lightweight buzz-bomb. Shorter driving days with more stops were required, but that just made for a better road trip.

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Further, the increase in displacement to 2.4L makes such a difference on mountain highways. The BRZ was always great on a winding road with little traffic, but now you can both get past big trucks with ease and don’t need to be constantly downshifting. It’s also more efficient than the spec sheets say — rated at 8.8 L/100 km highway, the manual actually returned more like 7.5 L/100 km.

The seats are great, and just keep getting better as the mileage increased. The cabin is so small that the air-conditioning didn’t have to work that hard to keep us all cool. And a sense of adventure never went away, even as the mountain views were replaced by Alberta flatlands. I found a perfect match for World Rally Blue at a drugstore and painted the kids’ nails to match (check out the photo gallery below). Eventually, we arrived at the Royal Tyrell museum in Drumheller to learn all about dinosaurs. Kids like dinosaurs and all kinds of extinct creatures. The old-school recipe of the BRZ kinda fit right in.

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The return trip went through the Kootenays and really underlined how great a small car is in the wild. Plus a gradeschooler on one of the lake ferries complimented the BRZ with a, “Nice car!” Pretty much everything else on the boat was either a crossover or a motorcycle.

Later that summer, I took the BRZ down to Dirtfish Rally School. All my previous cars have been modified in some way, but with this one Subaru got the formula so right, the only real tweak needed was tightening the nut behind the wheel. Sliding the instructor cars around gravel has got to be the best classroom there is, both in terms of fun and learning vehicle dynamics.

On the drive back to Vancouver, a rattle appeared in the dashboard. In my experience, Subaru installs those at the factory, at no extra cost.

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Braving the winter weather in the Subaru BRZ

As fall approached, it was time to deal with the tire issue. In B.C., from October 1 to April 30, most highways require vehicles to be shod with tires with either the M+S or mountain-snowflake symbol. A drive up the sea-to-sky on a sunny fall afternoon is one of the best end-of-day decompressors there is, and taking it off the calendar except for May-September was just not on the books.

Besides which, the 215mm Michelin Pilots that are stock rubber on the BRZ are neither super sticky nor really easy to slide. I swapped them out for Michelin’s new Pilot A/S 4 in 225 mm at each corner. There’s just a little more grip because of the bump in width, but the car still pivots nicely, and now seems to be even better at shedding standing water. Plus, it’s legal!

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True snow tires on a second set of rims might be in the cards, but Vancouver’s weather this year only had a few instances of really heavy snow. In those cases, the BRZ was too low to really get around anyway. Given the chance of occasional weird mountain weather (I’ve previously driven though two inches of hail after a May hailstorm), I’ll be keeping the all-seasons on year-round. Especially since this summer will involve a little gravel chasing in the Caribou, hopefully.

Maintenance-wise, it’s just been oil-changes thus far. I’ve looked into recommended upgrades for the odd day of tarmac lapping, and a brake pad with higher heat tolerance is recommended. For street use, the standard brakes have held up well.

Subaru BRZ vs Datsun 240Z

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I also had the chance to compare my BRZ directly with a Datsun 240Z. Moreso than the current Z, which is heavy and complex (I still like it though), the BRZ feels like a better match for the 240Z’s everyman affordable sportscar ethos. As an added bonus, the Z’s owner was 6’2” and still fit just fine in the BRZ.

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Summing up a year with the Subaru BRZ

At the end of the year, my BRZ has its first scuff under the bumper, its first rock chip in the paint, and a dump truck launched a stone that put a decent pock mark in the windshield. I literally shouted, “NOOooooo!” like I was Luke Skywalker when it happened. And it still has the happy face sticker my younger kid sneakily stuck on the door handle.

What’s most telling to me about the ownership experience is that, despite a long array of other cars of all types coming through the driveway through the year, I always seem to have to make a choice not to drive my BRZ. When a tester is really good — the GR Corolla springs to mind — it’s less obvious, but a lot of the time I find myself saying things like, “Okay, I’ll drive the Cayenne GTS today, but only because I have to.”

It’s far from a perfect car, noisy and a bit cramped and frequently impractical. But if, or rather when, the BRZ leaves my driveway, I’ll miss it. But at least I’ll be able to tell myself I didn’t miss out on the chance.