The FRS is exactly the car I’m looking at. Except it is actually a Scion. And I understand the main difference between it and the subaru is that the subaru is all wheel drive.
BTW, my 122 mile commute is mostly all two lane twisties, where I pass maybe one car every three or four miles. It is a motorcyclists paradise as well as a huge blast in any car that handles well. Coupled with the fact that my wife and I are empty nesters, this car may just be it for us.
But I’m worried about owning something that would be a temptation for others to steal, and cops to ticket. In my scion or Chrisler, I do 69 in a 55 ahd have for the 19 months I’ve lived here. I pass cops using moving radar and they never bother with me. I suspect they would with the FRS.
I sort of wrote it that way to emphasize the fact it has the Toyota reliability...and I still call Lexuses Toyotas, too. As much as I know, the FRS hasn't hit the cops attention, yet. It also has an amazing amount of attention paid to its mechanical design.
No, the BRZ and FRS are both rear wheel drive cars. The whole concept behind the rear wheel drive was to bring the fun back into driving (check out the link on earliest post...great youtube). The all wheel drive would make the car stick to road too much to have any fun with it. The differences between the two are a BRZ stiffer suspension, upgraded dash electronics, a different badge (the Subaru logo) and a much higher price. Other than that, they are exactly the same car. You can get the same parts from either Subaru or Toyota.
As has already been noted, the Subie version is RWD like the Toyota.
I just watched last night the UK Top Gear episode from this season (2/10/13) where they drove the Toyota version, which they call by another name across the pond (GT86).
At the end of the segment, Jeremy Clarkson asked the rhetorical question “How do you decide which to buy, the Toyota or the Subaru?” He then proceeded to eenie-meenie-minie-moe the decision.
They’re the same car, dealership and deal should make the decision for you, if both are available to you locally.