How the 2024 Subaru BRZ tS Puts Handling Performance at the Fore

• The 2024 Subaru BRZ tS, based on the second-gen BRZ, is distinguished primarily by chassis tuning.

• The new tS starts with the same 228-hp 2.4-liter boxer-four as other BRZs but gets manual transmission only, with revised spring rates and Hitachi shock absorbers front and rear.

• The tS is on sale now starting at $36,465 with destination.

The new Subaru BRZ tS offers a different path to greatness than the WRX TR.

If you want your own 2024 Subaru BRZ tS, you won’t be left to the whims of fate or excessive dealer markups.

The original tS, launched near the end of the first-gen BRZ’s production run, was limited to exactly 500 copies built over a two-month span in early 2018. Come early 2024, Subaru will unleash a new tS, based on the second-gen BRZ and distinguished primarily by chassis tuning. Only this time, Subaru will sell as many BRZ tSs as the world wants to buy.

The tS after BRZ designates “tuned by STi.” In case you’ve forgotten, STi stands for Subaru Tecnica International, the performance wing founded in 1988 that would eventually lead Subaru to World Rally Championship dominance with the famous Triple 5 Impreza and drivers like Colin McRae, Richard Burns, and Petter Solberg (though STi’s first feat of note was setting a land speed record in a production-based Legacy, averaging 138.780 mph for 448 consecutive hours around a 5.7-mile banked oval in Arizona).

The new tS starts with the same 2.4-liter boxer-four as lesser BRZs, generating 228 horsepower at 7000 rpm and 184 lb-ft of torque at 3700 rpm, manual transmission only. STi’s chassis tuning starts with revised spring rates and Hitachi shock absorbers front and rear. The fronts are Hitachi’s unique SFRD shocks—for sensitive frequency response dampers.

There’s no electric management, but there are multiple valves in each to redirect hydraulic flow and adjust damping rates based on the frequency of rebound.

There’s also a Brembo performance brake upgrade. This adds gold-painted four-piston fixed calipers in front and two-piston rear. Disc diameter increases at least one inch at both ends compared to other BRZs. All tSs will roll on 18-inch rims with 245/40 Michelin Pilot Sport 4 summer tires.

The tS’s 10-spoke metallic gray wheels are unique in the BRZ line. Its mirrors and antenna are glossy black, and there are tS badges on the grill and trunk lid. Inside, the gray Ultrasuede seats have leather bolsters, and stitching and accents are blue rather than red.

The tS will come with most everything offered on a BRZ (except an automatic trans). At $36,465 with destination, it’s the most expensive model in the line, which starts $31,315 for the BRZ Premium.

In short, the BRZ tS’s upgrades are similar to those on the new Subaru WRX TR. Moreover, while it gives up some grunt to the turbocharged WRX, the rear-drive BRZ is substantially lighter, so power to weight ratios are nearly identical. Both cars deliver impressive go for the price. Yet there, or at the Subaru badges, is where the similarities end.

Subaru recently commemorated its victories in the European Rally Championship’s Targa Florio, and we got to go along for the drive. On ancient roads in rural Sicily, worn shiny by time, cratered and damp, the all-wheel-drive WRX TR is more compliant and generally easier to manage. It’s easier to turn power into speed in the WRX.

The BRZ tS, with it’s shorter suspension stroke and Corvette-grade center of gravity, is more the handful. It’s disrupted more obviously by pavement heaves. It’s steering is firmer, with what we would call better feel, but it takes more commitment to achieve max velocity in the BRZ tS. More patience, and in a sense, more pain.

Ultimately, even in rural Sicily, the tS can be more fun. Certainly more pure.

And you can get it for about $6000 less than the WRX TR. Of course, you can’t throw your friends in the back of the tS, and probably not even your kids.

By volume, Subaru remains a relatively small car company. In the United States, the two best-selling Toyota models surpass Subaru’s total annual sales by a few hundred thousand. Subaru could probably ditch both the BRZ and WRX without a big impact on its bottom line. Yet it continues to deliver two very different paths to manual-transmission performance at reasonable prices.

No to belabor a point, but Subaru deserves praise for both of these cars, whether you actually want one or not.

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