In 2012 Toyota took a huge step back into the sports car market. There was a huge risk in this, as they’d been out of that game for almost a decade (I don’t care how cool your Celica looks, its a 2-door corolla) and they didn’t have a proper platform or even an engine to make a sports car. The only thing they had going for them was a nearly empty market. There were plenty of hot hatches and entry level GT cars, but the only affordable sports car available to most people was the good old Mazda Miata and the pricey Honda S2000.

To solve all of this, Toyota partnered with Subaru to create a wholly new sports car. A good bit of the drive train was to be made by Subaru and the rest was going to be Toyota. Consumers would get the unique engine format of a Subaru, but with Toyota build quality.

Best of all, it wasn’t a damn Miata.

But holy fuck it was slow. The 2 liter flat 4 was rated to barely make 200hp and it had nearly no torque. Worse yet, it weighed quite a bit more than a Miata. The enthusiast market this car was designed for had become so accustomed to high torque GTIs and STs that this motor (and its notorious torque dip) became a joke.

In 2021 Toyota and Subaru decided that those haters can eat their metaphorical cocks, and they added the FA24 to the new car. If you want to read more about that, we have an whole article on it here.

This new generation of sports car is great in so many ways. For once, I’ve actually gotten to drive this car on both the open road and on a closed course. It is great at both.

After spending nearly a year having only driven 5000lb behemoths on public roads, hopping into a junior sports car felt a bit weird. It is really light. That’s not really an issue when you’re driving at mach fuck around an autocross course (in fact that’s part of what makes it so good) but on the highway it can be a bit scary when an 18-wheeler drives screams past you. I will need to acknowledge for this part that I used the BRZ tS for the public road portion of this, which does have a slightly different sport tuned suspension. It made the rear end slightly more lively, enough for you to feel it over rough PA roads but not nearly enough to cause a problem. The traction control works, but not too hard. You might feel a little bit a yaw if you mash the gas at just the right time, but it won’t let you spin. Unlike its forefathers, it has more than enough power to merge onto a highway, meaning you don’t really need to pour burning dump trucks of money into tuning it.

The BRZ/GR86 isn’t a terrible car to live with either. Super adjustable interior allows anyone to fit in the car and its quick and easy to change the sitting position. Unlike its German half-sibling the GR Supra, its super easy to get in and out of too. Its no lift back, but it does have plenty of storage; just enough space to fit an entire set of spare tires. It has all the modern luxuries you’d expect too, things like screen mirroring and and a decent sound system. The only drawback is that you do need to go up to at least the “Limited” if you want heated seat.

Now the bit you’ve all been waiting for, I autocrossed this thing. It loves it. I’d love to call the GR86/BRZ a straightforward car to race, but it might take offense to that. It hates going straight, all this car wants to do is turn. Not oversteer either, actual controlled turning. I drove a GR86 and a BRZ tS at 2 different autocross events and both times I struggled to get it to understeer. I could go full on orangutan and yank the wheel to one side and it would still turn. On my best run this car pulled so many gs that I’m pretty sure I felt my brain being squeezed out of my ear. It could do this under throttle too.

The differential used for the GR86/BRZ is probably one of its greatest feats. In a time where the shit to have is a clutched diff, Toyota decided to stick with what they know worked and used a helical diff. I could write a whole article on how these different mechanisms work, but all you need to know is that this made the rear end of the car super predictable. Its easy enough to get the rear end to fishtail a little bit, and in many cars that would be terrifying. Here, just turn in a little and it corrects itself.

The only letdown when racing this car was the incredibly short 2nd gear. Maxing out in the mid 50s, it greatly limits what you can do unless you want to risk an up-shift. In a time trial this wouldn’t be a huge concern, but in autocross that’s a huge risk to take. That still hasn’t stopped the GR86 and the BRZ from being the car to have for the D-street class. Of course there’s the elephant in the room: the FA24 has oiling issues under high gs. The solution? Buy a BRZ, because Subaru is already used to replacing engines.

There really hasn’t been anything quite like this car since the S2000. It beats out it’s previous generation in every way, taking the styling and components that made the first generation so great, and then adding in a proper powerful engine. Its still not quite as fast as a Miata, but that great new motor allows it to fill a new niche that Mazda could never manage.

The better images were provided by KJB Media.