After 5 miles I was hooked. The stories are true. The legend is real. It is a fantastic machine.
I then drove it another 100 miles on motorway, A-road and single tracked barely surfaced roads. I had a ball.
If this wasn't such a fantastic car to drive I'd whinge about the quality of some of the interior materials, the aftermarket look to some details in the cabin. But I won't. Because it is THE true, modern sports car for the people.
The BRZ costs £24,995 but the one I'm testing is an SE Lux and costs £26,495. For the extra £2.5k you get heated Alcantara and leather seats and, erm....nothing else that I can find. They're very good seats though.
The BRZ has a 2 litre, flat-4 boxer engine which produces 200bhp and does 0-60mph in 7.6 seconds. That doesn't sound much but believe me, it is enough to generate lots of thrills.
The engine doesn't have a turbocharger so has a lovely flat power band with a red line at a screaming 7500rpm. And it does scream. A marvellous sound which only a boxer engine can make.
The test car comes with an optional satnav which works almost as well as a TomTom (praise indeed from me) and Bluetooth which, after a bit of a faff to connect, seamlessly streams calls and music from your smartphone. This is good because it doesn't have digital radio - a major let-down.
The driving experience is fantastically sporty. The BRZ has the lowest centre of mass of any car on the market (thanks to Budda for that info) which aids such a sweet handling experience. The suspension is quite soft when compared to similarly priced hot hatches, which rely on hard-as-nails damping to overcome the inherent deficiency of being based on a humdrum hatchback.
The engine's only weak point is it's lack of torque - 151 lb ft. This is only an issue when overtaking on the go. You need to chuck it down a few gears to get it to hurry up. The immensely short-throw gearbox is a peach though.
I've got the BRZ for 5 days. Speedmonkey will publish a full review soon.
Article by Matt Hubbard
