Take a moment and mentally process all of the hype surrounding the launch of the 2013 Subaru BRZ. Go on, I'll wait. Now take that hype and dial it back to 80 percent. That's how good the Subaru BRZ is. It's not the second coming or the messiah for performance driving -- it's not perfect -- but it is quite good.
The B in BRZ should stand for "balanced" because that's exactly what Subaru's new rear drive coupe is. This car is all about balance with a near 50-50 weight distribution between its front and rear axles and a low center of gravity that is helped in part by its engine configuration, but is mostly due to the BRZ's purpose-built sports coupe design. This is no repurposed and hotted up econobox; it's a bona fide sports car.
It's also rather lightweight. Tipping the scales at 2,882 pounds in its heaviest BRZ Limited with six-speed automatic configuration (the heaviest setup the BRZ comes in), the BRZ is only 263 pounds heavier than a similarly equipped Mazda MX-5 Miata PRHT. Ditching the automatic gearbox in favor of one you shift yourself further closes that gap, but we'll come back to that in a moment. Even thought it is heavier, the BRZ has a slightly better power-to-weight ratio than the Mazda, only toting around 14.41 pounds per pony versus the Miata PRHT's 15.3 to 16.6 depending on configuration.
Speaking of power, the BRZ's comes from a 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine that can be tucked low and far back in the engine bay, thanks to its horizontally opposed "boxer" configuration -- which is what the B in "Boxer Rear-drive Zenith" actually stands for. We've already gone into detail about how this Subaru engine makes use of a Toyota head that supposedly combines the best bits of port and direct injection tech. And many of you have gone into detail about your thoughts that its output of "only 200 horsepower" seems a bit low. We'll come back to that bit momentarily.
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