New Subaru BRZ Was Just Nominated As A Prestigious Car Of The Year Candidate

Work for Torque News, follow on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.

The 2022 Subaru BRZ is coming this fall and was just nominated for a prestigious award. Could the BRZ be the car of the year in North America?

When will the all-new 2022 Subaru BRZ sports coupe be at retailers? The remodeled second-generation BRZ is coming this fall. The sports car has been nominated for the 2022 North American Car, Truck, and Utility Vehicle of the Year Awards (NACTOY) ahead of its retailer launch.

The prestigious nomination comes from 50 highly experienced and respected jurors from print, online, radio, and broadcast media across the U.S. and Canada, rather than a single publication or media outlet. To be eligible, vehicles must be all- or substantially new and available for purchase before the end of the year.

The 2022 Subaru BRZ is the only Subaru vehicle nominated for the NACTOY award. Along with the new BRZ, the Toyota GR86 is also nominated for the award.

Both models, built at Subaru's Gunma, Japan assembly plant, are completely remodeled from the ground up. The BRZ now comes powered by a normally-aspirated direct and port fuel injection 2.4-liter Boxer engine. The 2.4-liter flat-four produces 228 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque.

The BRZ is lighter than the first-generation sports car, with an aluminum roof and fenders, and updated front seats and mufflers contribute to reduced weight. Body rigidity has been improved by approximately 50 percent over the outgoing model.

What is the price of the 2022 Subaru BRZ?

Subaru has not released pricing on the new BRZ. Production of the second-generation 2022 Subaru BRZ started this spring at Subaru's Gunma, Japan assembly plant. The BRZ will go on sale early fall of 2021. Torque News will bring pricing information when it's announced.

This week's NACTOY announcement says jurors will narrow the list with a preliminary vote in September then will conduct additional driving evaluations through the rest of the year, including during an October comparison drive in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Semi-Finalists will be announced in September, with finalists announced in November and category winners in January 2022.

The 2022 Subaru arrives this fall for customers in North America. Will the new BRZ make the final NACTOY cut? Stay tuned.

You Might Also Like: Subaru WRX And STI Are Now The Fastest-Selling Compact Sports Cars

Denis Flierl has invested over 30 years in the automotive industry in a consulting role working with every major car brand. He is an accredited member of the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press. Check out Subaru Report where he covers all of the Japanese automaker's models. More stories can be found on the Torque News Subaru page. Follow Denis on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Subaru Report - We’ve got you covered! Check back tomorrow for more unique, informative SUBARU news, reviews, and previews you can trust.

Leave your comments below, share the article with friends and tweet it out to your followers!

Photo credit: Subaru

Submitted by Erik the Austr… (not verified) on June 25, 2021 - 2:06PM

Permalink

Seeing as th enew motor FA24 is running at some crazy comression of 13:1 or so compaired to the FA20 at 12.4:1 (or so) will the aftermarket be as quick to release Turbo and SC bolt on options?
Any of these options will bring the power well over the predicteed 284hp being produced by the FA24 getting shoehorned into the new WRX.
Beling lighter again than the MK1 BRZ with more power, it will certainly place it into striking range of the WRX without the issues that arrive with Tubo charging for those happy to live the pure driving lifestyle of NA and Manual Gear Boxes.
I have owned My original MY13.5 BRZ since new and in that time have had the pridictible oil leak fro the Timing chain cover (Repaired under warranty) but one would expect a join where three metals under fairly strong heat cycling meet at a 3D 90degree location to eventually leak. However since getting the timing cover repaired, she has evaporated more oil than she has leaked ie: Nil (Run a good Oil with HIgh Zinc Add Pack early to set the motor up for a life time of stress free motoring. Aftr 8 years now the pesky heater hose located about 2.5cm (No crazy inch measurements here) sprung a leak. Thor, Freya, Allah and Jesus most holely bless the engineers for adding the Temp gauge as a minimum. Saved the motor 100% as I watched the temp rise from 50% to 80% in about a 30sec time frame as the last of the Coolant steamed off the Headers. Topped here up with water and drove her for the day it took me to source a 16mm ID 90degree EPDM Rubber hose (Subaru Australia seem to lean a littel too hard on the ware houseing facilities in Japan as it was a 4 week wait for this basic part which is common to all FA20's. Quick trip to the local parts storegrabbed a Z bend GAtes rubber hose, cut the required section out bang , boom, whack and 10 min later she's up and running as good as new. Only issue Fully flushed I;ve had to run her on Grean HOAT against my better desire to run the secret squirrel Unicorn Juice known as Subaru Long Life Blue (shhhhh - BASF G30 G12+ dyed Blue which seeing as it's almost impossible to get a data sheet on, I'm sure Subaru like to keep their Unicorn flock under lock and key to milk them once per day to dole out the magic coolant to the screamming masses of Scoobi fans). Hpoever, this looks to have neccesitated the requirement to swap out all Hoses for Silicone High Temp variants for another 140,000km of stress free enjoyable motoring.
If you to own an FA20 motor, please have the 90 Degree Heater hose that runs into the water pump sitting directly above the Headers; have it changed next coolant changed or when you have her in the air and bottom plates off. Two Sping Clamps and a $20 EPDM rubber hose for 100,000km's trouble free, OR HIgh Temp rated Silicone 90 degree bend with SS smooth screw clamps for a hose that will only perish during the upcoming Supernova in oh say T minus 1,000,000,000,000-Ex95 unless Lithification coverts teh rusty remains and the as new Silicone hose into some form of fancy new rock formation through tectonic activity.

One last thing, with all the hype onthe FA24, it will be interesting to see whether they are looked back on the way the fuddy duddy's today look back on and poo poo the upgrade made by Honda from the K20C to the K24C and will the difference come across as the same. Higher low end Torque for the 24 but quicker freer playful reving of the 20's?
Living in the People Comunist Republic of Australia, there are very few times one would be able to express there joy at owning a vehicle that can go fast as the Brain Washing Big Brother run campaigns where they literally state "Every K over is a killer" and then hunt you down like a child molesting, fin-tech tax evading lunatic on day release from the lunatic asylum if they happen to laser read you running at 1-2km over the extremelly low speed limits enforced on the road.
Yes we are technically COVID free (Mild panic over the 30 cases detected in one state over hte past week where they are locking everyone in their houses and the state I live in a wringing their hands in dismay as two people have been found to have COVID while LOCKED UP IN QUARANTINE!.

With leaders ike this, I'm amazed they even allow vehicle's to enter our fair country that can even come close to destroying the land speed record of 1910 (20mph or the like) because damn it, who will think of the children.

In summary I've owned several cars in my life an the two that stood out by far aste hbest have been my BRZ MY13.- No issues, ever, Spent about $600 on getting new Plugs put in as I was al ittle lazy to do this one (Dealership service rate is $1700 for 86 and $1200 or so for BRZ) adn they may, if your lucky put an oi in your car. Won't be the right oil, but it will be an oil.... All other oil, coolant, hose additions, electrical works and anything not requireng engine out (Which could be done with skinny arms (cough cough) has been done by myself so ownership cost have been minimal.
Second Best Car: - VW 1303 L Superbug strocked and bored to 2076cc with twin 44idf Weber Kit and Fibre glass faux-Porsche kit. Tunring cirlcle of about 4mtrs about 160hp (Not much, but a lot more than the factory 50hp and also in a shell which was 50% due to all the fibre glass. Again, did alll the work myself, from setting tappets once a month, mutiple additions of Bolt On Mods, tuning Carbs. UEL Headers with Nil length so was the only vehicle in the neigbourhood that gave the local chater of the Banditos a bit of a scare when I throttled it pas ttheir head quarters each week. Theme of Flat Fours beginning to shine through and as notedm, these are the ultimate engine desin in my opinion. Obviously all engines have there drawbacks. Have yet to see a perfect engine design. MAybe the camless V12 in the works by Koenigsegg may hit the Holy Grail, but then again. Sme like straight 4's, some love the silky smoothness of the Straght 6, others love the Torque and noise of a beautifully cammed V8 or like to drink their Earl Grey while being whisked along in their V12 Bentley / Rolls Royce.
Just be greatful for choice, buy and enjoy what you love, take care of it as most modern engines will give yearss of service if you treat them nice in return - give them a drink of freash oil once in a while to raise the TBN level, remove that rusty coolant so it isn't dieing of heat and enjoy your internal cmbustion engine while we still have companies like Subaru willing to not only invest in Internal Combustion Engines, but also package it in a RWD impracticaly small and low machine for one to two people to enjoy while laughfing at any poor soul confined to the rear seats if they can manage to get aboard.. and get on the road while they exist for self piloted vehicles before Elon pays the right people and has it all converted to autonomous driving systems with humans banished to either busses, bikes, walking, or sitting in a state of cat like readyness to jump onto the wheel in the fraction of a second between the automnomous system detecting an issue, deciding it's too hard to deal with, and then hands control to the human on board to assist in absolving Elon and gang of any respnsibility for the vehicle plowing into the side of a semi. "But the human should have been paying attention at that exact spilt second of the 15hr road trip he had be getting driven on autonomously your honour, not my cars fault, it was his for not predicticting the vehicle wouldn't slow down nor veer directly at the last second into the 18-wheeler" will be the refrain...

So again, enjoy the freedon of the road and the rumble of your boxer motor, your roaring V8, your whistling Turbo'ed V6 or silky smooth I6 while you can so you have somehitng to tell your grandkids while we are all waiting in the foodlines to be served food by the robots who have automated away our jobs (And because we were all distracted by Elon and Bezo's shiny thing's we forgot to ask for a small but livable stipend (a living wage you might say) so now they own all the means of production, all the IP's to all the robots that create all the wealth we can all get by on turnips and dirty puddle water reminicing about the good times when we used to turn up to a place, flpi food like the robot over there timmy and once per week, they'd actually give us money to exchangefor things. Some to live on, some to make live more worth liveing and some just for the pleasure of spending on something just for yourself.

Theyre not increasing compression to 13.5. Some early publication mixed up the steering ratio (13.5) for the compression ratio (12.5). The new 2.4 liter will have a compression of 12.5, not 13.5.