The Subaru BRZ Lives On for Another Generation!

2014 Suburu BRZ (Credit: © Suburu)

For a moment there, Toyota gave everyone a scare as the fate of the BRZ seemed to be dangling by a thread. It appears the comments made by an engineer at Toyota about the model that was jointly developed with Subaru were inaccurate or at least were interpreted incorrectly. Whichever it was, the president of Fuji Heavy Industries, which is the owner of Subaru, put the rumors to rest.

Yasuyuki Yoshinaga announced that a second generation of the BRZ is being developed, and that the inexpensive performance car is still a joint operation with Toyota. In fact, he went so far as to say that if he were told that the BRZ was going end-of-life after its first generation, he would faint from shock. The two Japanese automakers need each other to make the little rear-wheel drive coupe a commercial success.

Despite this announcement and the relief that performance enthusiasts who don’t have huge budgets felt, Toyota and BMW are continuing their joint quest at developing an even more potent sports car that would be slotted above the Scion FR-S. There is considerable speculation that the new car will be the successor for the legendary Supra, but for now nothing is even close to official.

Still, the sad truth is that the FR-S and BRZ have hardly been runaway sales successes. In fact, the two models have struggled to really catch on in the United States as well as other markets like Europe. Perhaps if the two automakers were to do something insanely fun like offer forced induction, more enthusiasts might feel compelled to purchase them.