So You Want a FRS/BRZ/86

All right, so real quick though, before we get started, I want you guys to know that this was gonna take place in front of an FR-S, but unfortunately, Gels apparently just didn't wanna bring his FR-S, and when we asked him why not, he said that he accidentally switched his keys out with another videographer. So here are the keys he missed out on, and here are his keys. Now, this seems like, yeah, it's easy to mess up, but if you just would've turned and looked, look what you would've found. Knowledge. B is for boxer, we've got really popular. RL is for real wheel drive. Z is for Zenith, and I'm running out of words to match this song to the one in the show. What's going on, you beautiful people? It's Alex from Fitment Industries. Alex, F-I on the socials, and today we're talking about another episode of So You Want with, we're with the FR-S, the BRZ, and the GT, and if you like numbers, 86, and actually, that's it, that's all letters I got for you today, boom, let's get into it. Don't forget to subscribe now that you're all amped up on FR-S's doing burnouts and cool stuff in the beginning of the video, because I always get amped up when I watch the editors do the things with the videos too, so, and hit the bell thing. The Toyota 86 is a sports car that was jointly developed by Toyota and Subaru in 2012 to now, and manufactured at the Subaru Gunma assembly plant. Are you ready for the crash course? Good. Meant to capture an entry-level performance automotive enthusiast, the BRZ FR-S 86 was essentially created a now current AE 86, which was built off the same mentality. Now, for the Toyota variant, it's marketed as the 86, or GT 86. Now, besides the fact that this initial partnership came out of pretty much nowhere, it actually made some pretty decent sense at the time to a bunch of executives that sit way at the top of most of these big buildings in New York and stuff like that. If you take it back to the good old recession days of 2008, Toyota bought 16 and a half percent of the Fuji Heavy Industrial, which owns and is the parent company of Subaru. So you would think that when Toyota came to Subaru with the idea for the concept, they'd be like, yeah, I suppose we could help. No, no, get that rear wheel drive, weird looking ass Toyota hugging face looking thing out of here. It was trash. They didn't want anything to do with it at all. Plus it was 2008, so in terms of actually having a lot of liquidable funds for stuff, it wasn't really going well for a lot of people. It was rejected. It took a working prototype and a lot of convincing, and for the fact of the matter, that they took all of the tread off of tires because they were doing so much crazy stuff with the prototype, that it finally got around to maybe this was a good idea. And they were eventually in like Flynn. From prototype to production, the automotive powerhouses that be had plenty of struggles that most enthusiasts were not too aware of with this joint partnership of things. It was like watching divorced parents have to get along for like a sixth grade soccer class. Like they just had to do it, and they were gonna do it because they cared about little Jimmy. They wanted him to succeed. Those struggles included having to work with another company who knew that would be difficult. Subaru's engine ended up adopting the fuel injection from Toyota because of its increased capabilities, which Subaru actually just didn't want. Toyota ended up having to show the trade secret of their fuel injection system, which Toyota didn't really want. A chief engineer from the LFA production had to step in and assist in getting the vehicle to the necessary performance numbers because what they currently had for engineers and for planning just really wasn't cutting the cake. They ended up having to change the fuel injection information, the bore and stroke, and a few other items until they finally hit that horsepower target and goal that they so desperately needed to have the car be capable of hitting the market that they wanted to. But it's just like having a good batch of brownies. It doesn't matter if the entire kitchen is destroyed and it takes two hours to clean up because once you actually just take the first bite of those medium warm brownies out of the oven after they've cooled, it's totally worth it. The FR-S is just a really good box brownie. From there, the GT86 train hit and it hit hard. It was a massive success by many and the automotive enthusiasts took the car and just ran with it. It was golden, at least except for the 2013 model, which had some valve spring issues. But once those got sorted out, then they ran with it. They were good for about 1,000 miles and then the motor blew up for some reason. But other than that, and other than that year, smooth, smooth sailing, baby. In the automotive realm, the BRZ FR-S hit the market damn near perfectly. It was fast, it was nimble, and at the perfect price point that actually allowed people to pick them up and have a little bit left over for wheels, tires, and suspension at your boys' place of Fitment Industries, ayo! It didn't have forced induction or an overly complex interior. It was an extremely strong platform that made plenty of people jump from their standard Miata, 350Z, or S2000 counterpart to try something different, to try something new. And it didn't take long for all of these cars to get the good old treatment from the world that we all know and love, us. The people that change things around from OEM and we think it makes it better, but then it doesn't. That's us, and it's your boys. So what can you expect if you were to pick up an FR-S or a BRZ, oof. Let me tell you, bud. You'll see Grim Speed parts everywhere, RPF1s lurking around every corner, Tomi, Tomai, Tomi, unequal length headers awaiting your credit card information, tame coilovers, and some Michelins awaiting the next happy turn. And these vehicles have an almost unusually high amount of modifications available to them, which is why the platform is just so, just so damn awesome. See, you've got brands like HKS, Cosworth, Subi Speed, Stop Tech, Faction Fab, Cobb, Travonia, OLM, TRD, ECU Tech, Parent, and just about every other possible brand out there. If you think they make parts for the FR-S or BRZ, spoiler alert, they do. If you think you can build it, I promise someone's already done it, made a part for it, turned it into an LLC, and then put it on a site somewhere that if you type it in online followed by part name, you're gonna, it's gonna be there. Now, the actual driving experience of an FR-S, BRZ, straight out of the box, no modifications are pretty good. As long as you're not looking for some sort of crazy horsepower car, something's gonna be braggable. And when I say braggable, I mean, you wouldn't even be able to have like a conversation that usually goes like, you know, like, hey bro, you see me roll up next to that 335? And like the other friend's like, yeah, man. And you know, then you're like, yeah, man, I raced them. And I, dude, gapped them, buses, buses, dude. Like that conversation's never, never gonna happen if you own an FR-S or a BRZ with no modification, just not. You could say maybe like a Miata, like that would be, that would be a comparable battle. But you don't buy an FR-S or a BRZ just to stay stock, but you can keep them stock if that's what you enjoy. Modifications certainly help, no doubt, but that's not the point of this car. It's a driver's car like a Miata. And that's why people love these platforms just as much as a lot of Miata people do. It's been one of the few cars to come out in recent year that gives the younger car guy or gal a vehicle that isn't an arm and a leg, a chance at smiling in the high-rev section of a pretty outstanding sounding engine. So what are the pros and cons? I'm glad you asked me, me? Because the pros are that it's a great platform for almost any enthusiast. You'll be able to do anything you can think of to these cars, forced induction, wide body, slamming, track setup, minimal mods, moderate mods, or just turn it into a miniature jet car. It's pretty much all possible. The Subaru and Toyota combination mean you generally have a pretty good setup for reliability to boot, but I mean, there's some things that can make the whole thing blow up. Reliability once forced induction comes into play can get a bit weary, especially if you're not entirely sure what you're doing. But the basics after the recalls and all of that good stuff, and you should find yourself ready for one of the Saturdays to cruise with the boys. Well, there are a few cons as well if you're just about to jump into one. They are awfully popular, and for that particular reason, it's very difficult to have anything one-off. If you think that you wanna do something to be unique and stand out, more than likely it's already been done. If you're doing it for attention, it's also gonna be fairly difficult to do. Anything you think you want to do to the car has been done. And not that it's a bad thing. There are some killer BRZs and FRSs out there, like the Three Cities one, and I know Connor has one that's absolutely astounding that we've reviewed from the gallery, and they're unique in their own way, but you're gonna start to see consistencies across the car culture for that platform because it is just so popular. It's made it more difficult to stand out. I would say the only other gripe would be that people sometimes buy them for the wrong reasons, sell them, and then complain about the platform's performance. Let me just say this again for the kids in the back. If you're buying this car to brag about high numbers or fast anything, you're going to have a bad time. We love them, and they're all over our own aftermarket car gallery where it's like, it's a popular thing. You can see all the setups that anybody's ever done, and it's very cool because the FRS and the BRZ provide something that not a lot of other brands have been able to do, especially in recent years, considering how much everything seems to cost. Now, should you get an FRS or a BRZ, it's entirely up to you. They're practically their own Legos like we've talked about in the past, and they're a small sports car coupe that actually does pretty well with kind of handling anything that you throw at it, but they're not everybody's cup of tea, so if you're gonna buy one, we recommend test driving one first. It seems like there's no middle ground with the FRS, BRZ, GT86 community. It's either you love them or you hate them, and there's no in between, but honestly, if you did yourself a wee bit of research, you'd find out that they're pretty fun. Just kind of have to get over some of the differences that make the Subaru-Toyota partnership just a little bit funky that you can see all throughout the car, and you'd probably be a pretty happy camper, but if you guys have a BRZ or an FRS, let us know in the comments section below. If you have RPF1s, which we probably know that you do, you can also drop that in the comments section too. If you have the only type of BRZ, FRS build, nobody else has it out there, let us know, drop your ID or something like that. We'll probably tell you to add it to the gallery so we can review it from the gallery, but I'm Alex from Fitment Industries. Do not forget to subscribe and hit the bell button so we can do more videos like this, and if you're looking for more technical information, we have made a second channel for you guys. That'll be in the description link below if you're more of a fan of the technical stuff, the garage content, the build stuff. We'll be doing that stuff as well, but I'm Alex from Fitment Industries. We will see you later. Peace.