Face-Auto: subaru-boxer-sports-car-architecture-engine

subaru-boxer-sports-car-architecture-engine

subaru-boxer-sports-car-architecture-engine

GENEVA - Toshio Masuda, product manager for Subaru's new boxer-engined sports coupe, the one that will share its architecture with the Toyota FT-86, didn't reveal any more about the car's chassis than you'd expect. Except one thing. The car's benchmark, its target competitor, is the Porsche Cayman.
No, it'll be nothing like any Porsche, and it will probably cost no more than an Impreza WRX, but it will have Cayman-like balance. Or as Masuda-san puts it, Cayman-like "feel." Masuda wouldn't even commit to revealing how close Subaru has got to 50/50 weight distribution. He will go as far as saying, in translated Japanese to a small group of auto journalists; the car is all about balance.
Subaru also confirmed that it will sell the sports coupe (or sports car as they call it) while all but confirming it will have 2+2 seating - in the United States. Its 2.0-liter boxer four is a new Subaru design, and is said to make about 200 horsepower. It will be the first non-all-wheel-drive Subie sold in America since about 1994, and will probably go on sale early next year. Expect to see the car with the exterior design finally revealed at the Tokyo International Motor Show in December.
Subaru is working with a supplier, probably Aisin, to provide manual and automatic transmissions for the new boxer four. Masuda wouldn't confirm whether there's a sequential manual in the cards, or even how many speeds each transmission will have. You can bet on six for both the automatic and the manual. Subaru, of course, already offers turbocharged boxer fours in several of its production models. Masuda said he's concentrating on the naturally aspirated boxer for now, and wouldn't rule out a turbo for the future.
Toyota has pretty much revealed the production exterior design of its version, so far called the FT-86, at the same motor show. The FT-86 II concept, as Toyota calls it, has a poor man's Lexus LFA look to the front, with a hood and tail end that looks like a modern update of Celica styling. The coupe has a kink in the lower half of the inside b-pillar, and a raised rear wing. There was no interior reveal on the FT-86