Love it! More, please.

Congrats, this was a really well written article, not a given on any car site these days.

GR 86 is contemporary Celica.

cotd

It’s strange when a story pops up when you were just thinking about that very thing. I was sitting behind a blue BRZ at a stop sign tonight in my ‘13 Legacy. My 18 yo daughter loves the BRZ, she tells me every time we see one. (She notices alot of other cars too...🙄), but I keep her fairly grounded in a Laser Blue…

This is what I told everyone who would listen. Every guy in my Z club who rode in my 2017 BRZ w/Performance Package agreed. I’ve had my 73 240Z for 20 years and I love it, but the BRZ was the first car I’ve driven that surpassed my 240 for pure driving fun.

As a former 2x S30 owner and GR86 owner, I both agree and disagree. I agree with your assessments, but I think the similarity is in the spirit. Back in the Zs day, average fleet braking and handling were much worse than today, so the Z wasn’t as deficient then as it feels today (or felt even 25 years ago when I had…

I’ve been saying this since I bought my GR86. It isn’t a modern performance car so much as a vintage sports car filtered through expected and mandated modernity. I had a ‘70 240Z and ‘74 260Z (earlier smaller bumpers) and this car is much closer to them than the bloated touring car Nissan is passing off now. Hell, I…

Yeah, that was a great car.  I drove it a couple times.  He switched to an Altima when they moved that to almost the size of the Maxima.  I think because Mom had to drive more and that Maxima scared everyone when she drove it.

I owned a 1971 240z. Fixed up the rust bucket, set up for an autocross/track day car, but it was a project with a no end in sight. So after many years I sold it to buy what I considered the modern 240z... a 2013 Scion FRS. The 350-370z were too bulky, lacked that simple light car feel the 240z had.

My college roommate had a 260Z back in the early 1980s. I remember its handling feeling heavy compared to the VW Rabbit I had at the time. I bought a first gen BRZ and it handled very nicely, but you really had to row the 6 speed to keep the revs up. I did like it though and I’d by one over a Miata (had one of those…

I agree completely with the characterization of the BRZ as being a reborn 240. The similarities are just too great - the price, the good (but not great) for their era performance, the 2+2 configuration, the hatchback, even the overall shape of the car.

Great comparison. I never thought of the Brz as the spiritual successor to the 240Z. But you’re right. It makes sense.

It’s probably the 240SX of our times: accessible rear-drive performance for the small segment of the population that wants it.

dammit mazda, why cant you just release a coupe miata to the masses for a few years? 

In my view, the BRZ/86 is a modern 944. Nice balance, 2-door hatch, pleasant enough to look at. I considered one as I moved out of my 944NA. Wanted more power and something where every piece of rubber hadn’t transmogrified into glass. Also, that interference engine dependent on the tiniest Brazilian g-string of 5mm…

Since the average price of a new car is $50,000 how out of touch with vehicle prices are you if you think $30,000 is out of reach for most people?

While struggling with a minivan was certainly true of the first gen BRZ I’d argue it’s less accurate with the new second gen. The manual BRZ has returned a 0-60 of about 5.8 in media tests, which isn’t exactly the sharpest end of the sports car field but does now put it within about a half second of cars like the four…

My dad wasn’t a fan of Japanese cars for a LONG time. He was a combat vet from the South Pacific and he had reasons for not liking Japanese products that he never told his kids.

The original 240 didn’t do that because it doesn’t have any sealant or gaskets at all, it just leaks.