It’s cliched but true that the best never stop innovating. After all, can you imagine where Apple would be today without the iPhone? Probably where Blackberry is. The Subaru BRZ is a similar deal. The second-generation of this popular sports coupe addresses nearly all the previous car’s deficiencies, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Unveiled at the 2023 Subiefest car show this past weekend, the sharpened-up 2024 Subaru BRZ tS promises to add even more fun to one of the best affordable performance cars on the market.
With the tS, Subaru has essentially given the BRZ a P90X box set and told it to have fun. It’s still the same enthusiastic little sports coupe that wags its tail and is as friendly as a labradog, but it’s been on a fitness improvement plan to hug curves even tighter and look just a little bit more buff.
First on the list of improvements is STI-tuned suspension, which sounds dirty if you’re unaware that Subaru Technica International is the Pleiades brand’s house band of go-faster development. Speaking of dirty, the dampers on this sharpened BRZ are made by everyone’s favorite sex toy and hydraulic excavator company, Hitachi (They also used to make VCRs; frankly, they make everything). Ooh la la. If this is moving too fast for you, the BRZ tS also gets Brembo brakes unveiled on the Toyota GR86 Performance Package, featuring four-piston fixed aluminum calipers up front and two-piston fixed calipers out back.
Rolling stock remains Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires familiar to BRZ Limited owners, but the wheels have been painted black in the name of questionable aesthetics. Sure, black wheels don’t typically show the dark, murky film of brake dust as easily as silver, but come on. Oh, and the mirror caps and sharkfin antenna have been painted black so that people at car meets will give the BRZ tS style points and normal people will just think its owners are very good at just barely running into things.
Thankfully, things cheer up on the inside, where the interior is a little more blue than usual. Each front seat sports a pair of natty blue stripes, and stitching on just about every textile is as blue as Eiffel 65. Adding pops of color to an otherwise dark cabin feels like something worth celebrating, don’t you think? Oh, and the start-stop button is emblazoned with the STI logo, a little touch that goes well with the tS badging on the outside of the car.
In addition to all its trim-specific tweaks, the 2024 Subaru BRZ tS debuts a new feature that will make it to all members of the 2024 BRZ range — manual transmission models will finally gain Subaru’s Eyesight advanced driver assistance system suite with automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, and all the lovely stuff regulators enjoy seeing.
Alright, so the 2024 Subaru BRZ tS isn’t revolutionary, but it does hold one advantage over its predecessor. The last BRZ tS was a 500-unit limited edition model, but Subaru will make as many 2024 models as people want. That’s because the BRZ tS is a trim level, with tS now serving as a way to get more thrills without spending ludicrous money. Since it’s based on the BRZ Limited, I can’t see a massive price increase being in the cards. Then again, we won’t know until closer to the car’s on-sale date in the first quarter of 2024, so we’ll just have to hang tight until then.
(Photo credits: Subaru)
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Honestly, is there a car out there more people want to be the 2nd owner of than the Toyobaru twins?
Chevy SS
Nevermind the Toyota-Subaru partnership, the “tS” badge reminds me of the Scion tC. They seem about on-par with the BRZ/86, and the mixed-case label is a strange style decision.
This was a more entertaining article than I expected. Well-written, Thomas 😉
I find the inclusion of not one, but four Hitachis absolutely hilarious coming from Subaru, the company known for being the car of choice for lesbians around the world.
How do I get this without the weight, expense, and annoyance of the Eyesight?
So… they’re giving people a bunch of things they didn’t ask for and are NOT giving the ONE THING people have wanted for years (the turbo engine).
…not really? They’re basically just giving everyone a track ready BRZ from the factory. This includes all the mods you’d need to do to a regular one to make it track worthy but with a factory warranty. Seems like a win to me.
Well everything except a fix for the oil starvation issues they have. A baffle would be simple enough…
To be fair, some people and companies are doing some instrumented testing regarding that now to try to produce some genuine solutions, in case Subaru doesn’t.
900BRZ on YouTube tested Killer Bs first crack at a prototype baffled oil pan and there was no improvement in the initial tests. They’re going back to the drawing board, but keep in mind that Subaru and Toyota missed it originally, so even the aftermarket not getting it right the first time isn’t unexpected.
It may also require moving or modifying the pickup, if not other changes to get it right.
Wouldn’t this be an ideal application for a Canton Accusump?
Instrumented testing and rapid iteration to solve a specific engine problem is right in the wheelhouse of the manufacturer of said engine. Subaru/Toyota have all the resources in the world to create an effective solution and the tS would have been the perfect place to roll out the update, though it should really be implemented on all 86 varieties.
As cool as a EJ or FA20F Toytabaru would be. It would still starve itself, you would just get there faster. Real players know there is only one solution. Toyota needs to go dust off 70k Beams 3G’s. Would you make less power, yes. Would it be incredible while going slower, absolutely.
The chances of Subaru/Toyota ever offering this platform with a factory turbo is less than 1% and theyre smarter because of it. It needs to stay cheap, and even offering a turbo model would increase the costs too much.
Not to mention that a turbo BRZ/86 would step on the toes of the WRX and 4 Cylinder Supra in both performance and price
It already does the former. I ate a new WRX with some kind of aftermarket exhaust in my GR86. I was frankly surprised. Maybe he had a CVT, IDK.
Need STi wing, and about 20lbs. of boost.
Give it an STI wing you cowards!
Also Subaru should bring back the pink accent color. Everybody does red/gold! The rally blue/ STI pink go so hard together.
The last BRZ tS also came with an obnoxious boy-racer wing stapled to the trunk lid which this one thankfully does not. Also, +1 for the Pilot Sport 4 tires. I finally wore out the Pilot Primacy tires my ’18 BRZ came with and replaced them with the PS4 and the grip is noticeably improved.
I still think the car needs a hatchback and T-tops though.
Extremely happy to still have gotten the best (Base + manual) GR86 for under retail. They’re good cars, y’all should buy one.
Now you can DOMINATE the vape shop parking lot.
I was more interested in the GR86 as it’s supposed to have slightly sportier suspension tuning and imo better looking front end, but finally saw one yesterday in person and the subaru front end looks better than I thought and this addresses the suspension disparity-also anecdotally Subaru has been better about honoring engine failure warranties for folks who kill their engines tracking these so maybe Subaru it is. Really tempted for teh first time in a long time to buy one these. Doubt they’ll make more, with Mazda foolishly leading the way with converting the Miata to EV, the last of the great ICE sports cars (I’m not anti EV but what sense does it make to convert your lowest volume car first rather than starting with the highest volume models the miata could be ICE for years to come and barely make an impact on global emissions.)
I honestly doubt that the mazda is going to go full EV on the Miata. It’s probably going to be a mild hybrid – a proper hybrid at most.
Riddle me this. I get that if you have a “performance division” you might let them loose on your pedestrian models to make something more interesting, but when you introduce a sports car, especially low volume, should you not just have the “performance division” design it right from the start? If you have these elite engineers, why not use the resources from the get go?
I also have to say, based on these pictures, this is the very first time ever, EVER, the black painted wheels aren’t really bothering me. Maybe it’s because they didn’t go with the ugly (fight me) gold ones.
While a good engineer can do both, they are different types of people doing that work. The performance division engineering team probably has a completely different pay structure and that matters when you’re producing vehicles in mass.
Hell yeah. Skip trying to fight for one of the Toyota Cash Grab GR86 models and just get one of these. I’m happy that Subaru isn’t pulling cynical tricks to artificially drive up demand and is just offering this as a trim package…and at least in my area Subaru dealerships aren’t marking these up.
If you search for a GR86 within 100 miles the automatics (yuck) are still going for several grand over asking and manuals are often listed for $10,000+ over MSRP. Why bother with that shit when you can go get one of these at MSRP? Well done Subaru, eat shit Toyota. This is how it should be, not Akio releasing a billion limited production versions of his racing fever dreams and winking at dealerships while handing them a black box filled of Pulp Fiction esque BDSM equipment labeled “use on enthusiasts at will”.
Not to mention the Subaru dealership experience is night and day better than over at Toyota.
Subaru has always cared about their customers and made them the main priority. Obviously this has a lot to do with their family car focused image but in my experience it seems to extend to their enthusiast cars as well…whereas Honda and Toyota basically gouge us for all we’re worth, release cynical, unimaginative enthusiast cars, and more or less go “whatever idiot, you’ll buy it” while winking at their dealerships.
It would be nice if more of us (enthusiasts) could respond reasonably and say “you know what? I’m not paying $15,000 over MSRP for one of these products, they’re not THAT special” but unfortunately JDM fans are different beasts entirely. As I said in my OG comment…their fixation on the cars borders on cult like sometimes, and as long as they continue to trip over each other to pay over asking for a chance to have one of these “special” or “limited” cars, there’s no reason for the manufacturers to change.
Paying $15,000 over MSRP is a status symbol to those types. They’ll still be bragging about how they got their ’86 when they were “hard to get” 5 years after they’ve totalled it doing a sick drift into your neighbors street parked work van.
I saw an FL5 CTR with temp tags at Cars and Coffee back in the spring. After the guy parked he immediately got out with detailing spray and a microfiber cloth and went around the car obsessively wiping it. I joked that I was going to go up and ask him how much over MSRP he paid but my sister said that was a dick move and talked me out of it lol.
You probably would have made his day, finally giving him a chance to show off that window sticker he’d been keeping in the glove box.
“I paid $65,000 for my waifu, thanks for asking”
…I’d make a joke about it being financed at 11% APR over 96 months, but in my experience a lot of the hardcore JDM bros are in fields like tech and engineering, so it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of them pay cash for these damn things.
These cars are cool but seem to be completely unavailable here. There are no new BRZs for sale within 100km of me and only one GR86 (it’s automatic!)
Such is life with anything JDM in 2023. JDM fans are cult like in their devotion and the car journo hype train (I’m not blaming this site, more the overall landscape)/cult of personality around seemingly every fun car out of Japan is making things even more difficult. I’d love to experience one of the new Toyobarus, a CTR/Integra Type S, etc. but they’re absolutely nuclear right now…although like I said in my comments at least Subaru doesn’t seem to be making people jump through flaming hoops for a BRZ.
Our local Toyota dealer lot has been empty for at least 2 years at this point, every time they get something in it sells instantly. Anything remotely cool or unique coming from Toyota/Subaru is just unobtainable right now, at least in my area
Unlike Toyota, you can order Subarus.
But have they fixed the RTV issue?
My understanding is it’s mostly the GR86s having that issue, unfortunately.
Mine just got back from a no-argument warrantied engine replacement at 34k (rod knock, reported RTV clogged oil pickup) on my purely street driven car, so there’s one that’s fixed (for now?). With one guy data logging and finding low oil pressure issues in right turns on track (also like most higher g turns for highway on/off ramps will be), I think the RTV might just happen to be there, but isn’t necessarily the root cause. I suspect (guess?) it’s another Subaru budget slap-together, like the EJ25 (EJ wasn’t intended for 2.5 liters when designed in the mid ’80s). I don’t think a sports car was much in mind when they designed the FA, but when Toyota approached with the idea and it was decided no turbo for whatever reason you like, they figured they could use what they had. Problem, was it needed hp for marketing reasons, which the N/A didn’t make without a higher redline, so they raised it about 1k higher than the original cars it was designed for. Then they needed usable torque for the 2nd gen, which meant bigger displacement, which in a boxer means larger bore as a maxed-out stroke requires the engine to get physically wider, which means more stress on the bearings from that weight on top of that induced by the higher redline. Add to that the car’s very impressive handling capabilities for its price—much higher than their other models—and that additional strain on the oil system combined with the uncooperative geometry of the boxer engine to gravity’s assistance, and it’s easy to think that could be a problem. Yet another thing is that the other performance(ish) FA24s are turbo and the turbo has a scavenging pump that may help keep enough oil in the pan, which of course the “more reliable” option of the N/A lacks. If this is true, the turbo engine not only would have satisfied more enthusiasts, but would have made for a more reliable car, and maybe even better mileage if the gearing could be made longer with the engine remaining at a low load state. That said, I personally have no complaints about the mileage as I’ve rarely averaged less than 30 mpg out of a tank and not much less at that, and more often over 30.