
A friend of mine picked up his new Subaru BRZ around a week ago and asked me if I’d be interested in taking it out for a spin. Since it’s one of the hottest cars right now along with the Toyota 86 I really wanted to try it out. The Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 were developed jointly by Toyota and Subaru. The 86 refers to the original Toyota Corolla AE86 which has a very large cult following all over the world.
There are currently two BRZ’s in Kuwait, an automatic and a manual gear version. My friend has the manual one and since I hadn’t driven stick shift since 1996 I was looking forward to it. Embarrassingly, I spent the first half hour getting the hang of the stick shift with my friend sitting next to me while we drove around his neighborhood. I was so bad that he got car sick and told me to drop him back home and bring the car back whenever I was done. Things got better after that since I had less pressure and once I hit the highways it was smooth sailing.

The car is pretty compact and cozy. The interior is simple and very plasticky which is fine except for the fact the BRZ in Kuwait comes with a really cheap looking 90s style CD player radio unit which would be the first thing I’d personally throw out of the car. Everything else I could live with but the stereo is just too retro for my taste. The AC is great and the very simple LED screen in the dash shows the outside temperature as well as what gear number you’re in. It’s all very basic but that’s really how the car should be.

The car is a rear wheel drive but the steering has a lot of feel to it. It’s very precise and probably my favorite part in the car. It’s not a powerful or really fast car by any means but if you’re a fan of the car you already know that. Handling wise the car is supposed to be great but I wasn’t really able to explore that since I didn’t speed nor did I take the car to any track. But the car did feel light and very agile.

The BRZ costs around KD8,500 but is currently very difficult to get a hold of one. The dealer is getting just one more BRZ from now till the end of the year and I think it’s already sold. It’s a pretty fun car that’s affordable and like the Toyota 86 will probably end up selling like hot cakes.