Subaru BRZ Coupe arrives

Subaru BRZ arrives

So the Subaru BRZ has finally arrived in production form ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show. And it’s all a bit of an anti-climax.

We’ve know for a long time that, in all the main ways, the BRZ was the Toyota GT 86 with a different badge. But we’d had more expectations of the BRZ in the power department.

Subaru has gone on record to say that the BRZ would get less ‘Less than 300bhp’. Which we took to mean ‘almost 300bhp’. But it doesn’t. It gets 200bhp. Subaru may as well have said the BRZ gets ‘Less than 500bhp’.

So, at the risk of repeating ourselves from the GT 86 story, the Subaru BRZ gets a four-pot Subaru Boxer four-pot with 200bhp (a whole 3bhp more than the Toyota) and the same 151lb/ft of torque.

The BRZ will also come with a choice of a six speed manual or a six speed flappy paddle auto ‘box. It’s 4240mm long, 1775mm wide and 1300mm high. So it’s identical to the GT 86 except for an extra 3mm in height. It also weighs slightly more than the GT 86 (20kg) at 1220kg.

As for looks, the BRZ is a GT 86 with Subaru badges – just as expected.

There seems to be almost nothing to differentiate the BRZ from the GT 86, We’ll just have to hope that junior partner Subaru is allowed to drop their new 300bhp turbo lump in at some point to produce something more special.