Following on from Toyota’s announcement the Toyota 86 will be refreshed, Subaru Australia has confirmed the BRZ will also be updated for 2017.
THE TOYOTA 86/Subaru BRZ twins-under-the-skin is/are now four years old, which is about the time many cars get a decent upgrade, particularly sportscars which tend to sell nicely in a burst and then tail off. That’s why it was no great surprise when Toyota recently confirmed there are some minor changes to the 86 on the way, with a revised model due out in quarter four of this year.
As the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ are mechanically virtually identical – many parts have Toyota badges on the outside and Subaru logos on the inside – then it makes sense changes will also be made to the BRZ, and now that’s been confirmed.
Subaru Australia isn’t able to say exactly what the changes are, or give trim specs or pricing, but we can speculate that the base mechanicals will be the same, and as with the current twins, the points of difference will be the styling, cost, interior trim and specification.
There has been concern in enthusiast circles the BRZ would be dropped, but Subaru say the car is a “good niche sales performer for the brand.” We do know that when the two-wheel-drive BRZ was first mooted there was some talk it would jar with Subaru’s All 4 The Driver motto which highlighted its (excellent) all-wheel drive system, but that worry is now moot as the campaign has now been replaced by “do” as in do this, do that. An early example is “do motorsports” with the factory backed rally car to be driven by Molly Taylor.
All this is good news for fans of budget rear-drive sportscars, because the BRZ does seem to occupy a slightly different niche to the 86. Judging by the insurance premiums in the last year it seems there’s a higher percentage of 86s in panel shops than BRZs.
Title image is the current model BRZ.
