Subaru BRZ review: the one Subaru without AWD, and the reason to actually want that
3.9/5motorssouq Editorial Team
Buy the BRZ if the reason you want a sports car is the drive itself, not the badge, the straight-line speed, or the resale story — a 235 hp, 1,278 kg rear-wheel-drive coupe with no turbo and no all-wheel-drive safety net is a genuinely rare thing to be able to buy new today. Take the manual over the automatic without hesitation; it is the whole point of the car. Budget for tyres more often than a sedan owner would, and accept that Bahrain's summer heat means this is a car you enjoy most before 9 a.m. or after sunset.
Pros
- Genuinely light (1,278 kg) rear-wheel-drive chassis with near-perfect weight balance
- Naturally aspirated flat-four with a linear, predictable power delivery
- Manual gearbox with a short, mechanical shift action rare in any new car today
- Honest, communicative steering and handling that rewards a good road
- A rare naturally aspirated RWD coupe still sold new in 2026
Cons
- 235 hp is modest against turbocharged rivals in a straight line
- Low ride height scrapes on speed bumps and steep driveway ramps
- Cabin air conditioning struggles against direct summer sun on a black roof
- Small, dedicated dealer and parts network rather than a mainstream one
- Rear seats are token — genuinely a 2+2, not a family car
The BRZ is a deliberate outlier in Subaru's Bahrain lineup: everything else the brand sells here is built around symmetrical AWD, and the BRZ throws that away entirely in favour of a lightweight, front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout co-developed with Toyota. At 1,278 kg it is lighter than almost anything else on sale new, and the low, flat-four engine sits far enough back and low enough to give the chassis a genuine 53:47 weight balance.
235 hp from a naturally aspirated 2.4-litre is not a big number, and this is not a fast car in a straight line against anything with a turbo. What it is instead is a car that rewards being driven at eight-tenths on a good road rather than flat-out on a straight one — the steering is quick and honest, the chassis talks back, and the manual gearbox's short, mechanical throw is the reason to buy one over the automatic.
The Bahrain reality
This is a car for the causeway on a Friday morning before the heat sets in, or Zallaq's back roads at dusk, not for stop-start traffic on Sheikh Khalifa Highway at 1 p.m. in August — the cabin air conditioning fights a losing battle with a black-roofed coupe in direct sun, and the low ride height means speed bumps taken at anything but a crawl scrape the front splitter on higher grades.
Running one in Bahrain means accepting a small, dedicated ownership community rather than a mainstream service network, and tyres that wear faster than a commuter sedan's if the car is driven the way it is built to be driven. None of that changes the fact that a light, naturally aspirated, rear-wheel-drive coupe available new is genuinely rare in 2026, and the BRZ is one of the last of its kind.