Subaru BRZ Gunma Edition: Exciter

16 April 2019 Redazione News, Stories, Tested

SUBARU BRZ GUNMA EDITION

EXCITER

Words by Andrea Balti

Photos by Daniél Rikkard

Power isn’t everything, but just for who knows how to go fast.

Carpe Diem, they say. Take advantage of every single occasion, seize the moment and feed yourself to the last drop of that passion that beats in the middle of our chest. With Subaru’s coupe you won’t be able to do differently. Every morning you will wake up early and every evening you will come back later than usual, quenching the thirst for miles that will never be enough. Like the legendary Impreza, which later became WRX STI and has now even left production, the BRZ is one of those cars that manages to bewitch you, but the big difference with the unforgettable rear-winged step-sister and with a good 90% of the other sports cars on the market is represented by what this puts at your disposal. There are no herds of horses to make your need for speed easy, you will have to sweat at every turn and only if you want it badly you’ll be able to cross that border that divides a simple driving day from an adventure lived on the razor’s edge.

Born in 2012, the Subaru BRZ has undergone a slight middle-aged restyling in 2016 and enters 2019 with a special edition called Gunma Edition. To embellish this model we have a dedicated color, the beautiful Cool Gray Khaki, two black stripes running through the whole car and a series of details (always in black) such as the blades on the wheel arches, rear-view mirrors, the rear spoiler and 17-inch alloys. But what makes this special model more intriguing is an interior with wrap-around brick and black leather and Alcantara seats and Sachs suspensions, ready to increase fun rate, just in case. For the rest, practically nothing changes and this is not bad at all, despite the fact that many keep asking for a few more horses and maybe even a vitaminized version that can continue the STI legend.

Exactly, the BRZ remains faithful to its philosophy that puts the driver at the center of a microcosm that is not reduced to a “point and shoot”, as it happens too easily with dozens of hot hatches able to make use of efficient turbo engines and make you forget what you really need to do for maintaining a nimble pace. Subaru, like Toyota’s twin sister GT86, wanted to create a pure car, putting a small 4-cylinder 2-liter boxer with 200 horsepower under the bonnet, mating it with a 6-speed manual transmission and connecting it to the back wheels only. The weight, quite reduced and which is around 1300 kg, a low and racy car body and a perfect balance tell the rest of the story. Even the dimensions of the tires have been kept to a minimum and precisely in this area, at least for the stock version, the BRZ profile shows a distance between the same wheels and the wheel arches that is too pronounced. The reason, in this case, is the maximum purpose of a whole series of choices that have rewarded a car that, 7 years after its launch, keeps intact the driving skills that will reward those who know how to handle it properly.

Once you sit on board, you feel like you’re two inches from the ground and even though the double exhaust doesn’t emit any kind of rumble, the steering wheel transmits with precision every slight change of the road. Directionality is total and the lightness of the car body, combined with a wheelbase of no more than 2 and a half meters, allows you to enter through corners and set your way out even before your nervous system realizes it. Everything is incredibly handy and if the two rear seats look more like a small extra cargo area, fun is all about the driver’s seat. The gear lever is short and is located exactly where it should be, allowing you to search for the ideal gear and not waste time, thus returning with both hands to the wheel and releasing some healthy ignorance on the road. Power is not everything, but just for who knows how to go fast. This is the limit that must be overcome to receive from the BRZ what the BRZ is able to offer. Don’t expect lightning acceleration: its 7.6 seconds on the 0-100 kph are by no means a bloody fast figure. It is not even a car for motorway blasts, with a maximum speed of 227 per hour and a torque of just 205 Nm at 6,400 rpm. The Jap coupe is one of those old-fashioned, analog, mechanical cars that gives you enough confidence to start taking measurements and pushing beyond your ideal entry limit as you approach a bunch of demanding bends. Here you have to play with the three pedals, be quick with your movements, but above all violent. There is no room for falling asleep or throwing down the gas expecting a turbine to take you off your feet, because you will have to be in the right gear, with the tacho needle pinching the red line and ready to look for the following ratio. I repeat, power is not everything and when you accept the nature of the BRZ, you will discover its reason in the automotive world. At that point you will appreciate its character as a whole and you will see it as a musical instrument, exactly as a guitar can play smooth at a town party, or heavy metal in front of a delirious arena. You are the musician, play what you want.

And then you look at it and appreciate the interest it gives in the faces you cross, leaving them unsettled until they notice the Subaru decals affixed to the sides of this Gunma Edition. But like any beautiful discovery, you will still need to enjoy some of that healthy passion and then you leave the city centers, where, moreover, I keep regretting a too soft clutch pedal. You point the nose towards the mountains, still immersed in the fog of the last days of a winter greedy of snow. After a few kilometers I come to one of our favorite mountain roads and take advantage of the wet asphalt, deactivate traction control, leaving the rear to refresh my memory about how simple it is to straighten out once the grip limit is exceeded. The set-up is not too rigid and in between fast corners, you pay for the choice of having tires that are not optimal for this type of driving, but when the bends start to raffle tightly, that’s where I start laughing like crazy. We need to induce a little pendulum effect, the so-called “Scandinavian Flick”, going to steer first in the opposite direction and then with a quick movement break down the weights and step hard on the throttle. This is just one of the many examples of how you can have fun without even getting close to the permitted speed limit.

I could go on like this until the end of days and I would also like to do it, but the sun has already retreated and the support car with the photographer has already backed down. I stop on the side of the road, about fifty miles isolated overlooking a mountain now assaulted by fog and the incoming pitch black of a winter evening. I turn on the radio, the air conditioner to heat the car’s welcoming interior and I begin to return home with a pace that could rival the classic “old man with the hat”. It is as if I tried in every way to delay the moment to enter the office garage, because I know that leaving the key on the desk and coming back home will inevitably bring to the sad goodbye to the BRZ. And if you’re wondering, yes, I still miss it.