[kaisen]

We bemoan the lack of manuals in high-end sports cars, but this price segment is wonderfully thick with them and many are delightfully good. The BRZ is no exception. The transmission is from Aisin (the automatic, too), but 80 percent of its components were swapped to enhance feel and quicken shifts, and it was given triple-cone syncros on gears 1 and 3. It has shorter spacing and quicker throws, and runs through its six speeds smartly. Another nod to manual operation is that the pedal rake is different for either transmission, and the pedal throw is shorter on the manual to make heeling-and-toeing easier.



Two hundred horsepower is enough for the sub-2,700-pound coupe.
We pulled out onto the oval and worked up to speed. Two hundred horsepower is enough for the sub-2,700-pound coupe, with the urgent-enough grunt, plentiful road feedback and engine noises making it feel like things were happening, but we wouldn't complain about more, a fact which shouldn't surprise you (the BRZ GT's 300 hp, anyone?). We aren't alone: One of the engineers, when asked what how he might alter the coupe, said "For the handling there's nothing to do, but yes, maybe a little more power."

The MT BRZ also sounds like a sports car – it's what the English would call "rorty," with an engine note that fills the cabin whenever you call for action, getting a little help from the sound amplifier. When you get into the meat of the power band beyond 3,000 rpm, the boxer four is asking for attention, at 4,500 rpm it's intense, at 5,500 rpm it's telling you "We gotta make something happen here," and at 7,000 it's a 12-banshee wail. With one hand on the shift knob and the accompanying acoustics, you'll never wonder what gear you're in. Even so, it is mild when you're not pushing it, whether that's puttering around a parking lot or cruising at 90.



In spite of what McHale said were the two handles for getting a grip on the car – "What kind of engine and where it is" – we think the BRZ only needs this one, another McHale statement: "It's about handling." No, make that three: handling, handling, handling. Engine compactness and placement might be how they got to it, but what the BRZ meant to us was the way it dealt with the road.

The stiffness of the BRZ's body and low center of gravity allow the suspension to focus on dealing effectively with the tarmac while also not killing the ride quality. Side benefits of that stiff body, and the help it gives to the suspension, are in details like the tires, which don't need ultra-stiff sidewalls to fight cornering forces. That helps general comfort, too.



The Toyota/Scion version has softer suspension settings up front, harder settings in the rear.
There is but a tiny amount of body roll when making quick lane changes at 70 mph, and when in the middle lane of the banked corner at 100 we felt the entire coupe settle – thanks to centrifugal force – but there was no sensation of the passenger's side taking a dive. More telling was lapping the oval in the bottom, flat lane, where we could do 100 miles an hour just as easily as on the bank. The electronic power steering is sorted, with a dash of give so you're not constantly tweaking the wheel but also not sloppy in the least; without the assistance of the banking the steering never called attention to itself. Once we had the wheel set for the radius, there was no concern about getting around at triple-digit speeds – just a hint of the suspension compressing with such little fuss that we were certain we could have gone faster.

Brake dive has also been minimized – in fact, there's practically none. The double-wishbone rear suspension uses the same components as the Impreza WRX STI, but with different geometry and detailing: pillow-ball joints replace rubber bushings on the wishbone arms (the WRX STI has pillow-ball joints on the front, not the rear, while the BRZ doesn't have them up front), hard rubber bushings are used on the trailing arm to keep the rear down, and a special valving was developed for the dampers to provide a suitable compromise between highway hop (over frequent expansion joints as on California highways), roll, maneuverability and stability. Of note, we were told that the Toyota/Scion version has softer suspension settings up front, harder settings in the rear.



The handling course had a top speed of 30 mph through the corners and 45 mph on the straights, which we're not sure if we should admit we broke, but... we did. The BRZ acquitted itself well, the zero-dive braking and turning letting one focus on timing and getting the wheels placed where we wished and keeping them there, which made it easier to get out of the corner – because with "just" 200 hp to play with, every bit of momentum you can maintain is precious gold. The eminently grippable steering wheel is the smallest Subaru makes, at 14.4 inches it's ¾-inch smaller than the next size up, and its 13:1 ratio doesn't demand much sawing to get through hairpins. Pushed as much as we could (noting the Subaru engineers posted at every corner), even with VDC off we were getting to the point of admitting "Now we're just getting crazy" before the front or back end stepped out of line. And yes, you can turn VDC completely off.



The eminently grippable steering wheel is the smallest Subaru makes.
In keeping with being told that the car is meant for high-speed cornering, however, the brakes might also see some upgrades before long. They're two-piston up front, single-piston in the rear, and they get a workout even with the car's light weight. Go for broke on a turny, tight course and it won't take long to fill the air with the tangy perfume of hot discs and pads.

The only odd note here was the speedometer. It is placed to the left of the center-position tachometer, with zero at the bottom, and the needle swings clockwise. It has so many hashmarks and numbers that it took too much effort to read, so, à la any Aston Martin, we only looked at the digital speedo inside the tachometer.



Because the BRZ is about handling and does that job so well, we knew we'd be happy in the automatic-equipped version as long as it shifted properly. And ye gods, it did. The Aisin unit is a conventional autobox, reworked by 20 percent to improve its clutches, shift times, gear-holding response and even alterations to its mapping if you're driving uphill or downhill. In both normal and sport modes, it will be happy to stay in the fat of the power band, it will hold gears during cornering and rev-match on the way down. It doesn't always allow downshift multiple gears at once, but there are times when you can hop down two gears instantly depending on engine and car speed.



The BRZ goes on sale next March and options will be few.
It has paddle shifters and a manual mode, and if you don't shift at all it will automatically upshift when you're in the overrev. Otherwise, in Sport it will upshift at about 5,500, and you get quicker shifting. The in-cabin sound amplification is set up differently on the automatic, so the cabin is quieter than in the manual. You don't notice it down low or when cruising, but push it some and it's noticeably less raucous inside. It is quick to work the gears when we wanted more juice on the oval, and it did a good job when we left it to shift on the handling course. We probably could get another 15 percent out of it during the artificially limited running, but we suffered no "Hey tranny, what are you doing?" moments. It never let the coupe down, and the package worked well enough that, taking into account its quieter cabin, we can fully admit that the auto will make perfect sense even for people who want a part-time sports car.

To you in Southern California, though, if Subaru's concrete samples were accurate, then you will find that those nasty, grooved highways like the 10 and 405 are not kind when it comes to cabin noise.

When the BRZ goes on sale next March it will come standard with navigation, the 6.1-inch display, 196-watt AM/FM/single CD stereo, iPod and USB connections and Bluetooth, and heated mirrors. Options will be few, namely convenience items like the leather and Alcantara buckets, heated seats, dual-zone climate control and keyless access.



Subaru doesn't expect high volumes for the car, just 5,000 to 7,000 per year. The Cayman comparisons aren't out of place, nor is the suggestion – again made by McHale – that Subaru built a car that feels like a sports car from 20 or 30 years ago. True, it isn't a Cayman, but it will cost easily 20 grand less than a Cayman* and yet provides easily more than seven-tenths of the Cayman's pure cornering ability, and that's probably closer to eight-tenths, but we won't know until we get more time with the car. And it does bring back happy days of yore passed on Midwestern back roads in '80s Celica Supras and Preludes and first-gen Miatas. Those were good times, and so is the BRZ.