Our favourite, steel-wheeled Subaru BRZ spec has had an update

Yep, you’ve read that right: for not much more than a bog standard Dacia Jogger, Japanese buyers can today get hold of a Subaru BRZ in Cup Car Basic spec, now boasting a couple of mild updates. Excuse us while we Google ‘japan uk car shipping price'.

The BRZ Cup Car Basic - complete with those throwaway 16in steelies - first came to our attention a couple of years ago, and was designed to compete in the Toyota Gazoo Racing GR86/BRZ Cup series.

Powered by a 2.4-litre boxer engine deploying 232bhp via a six-speed manual gearbox, it came with a six-point harness and roll cage, cancelled airbags, plus additional cooling measures for the engine oil and rear differential. Oh, and special floor mats.

Fast forward to the present day and it still comes with all of those things, except Subaru has revised the shape of the roll cage and the BRZ CCB now gets Subie’s EyeSight driver assistance safety gear. Blind spot monitoring for the track, anyone?

Oh, and the special floor mats have also changed shape to accommodate the new roll cage. And that’s pretty much your lot.

Originally the Cup Car Basic was priced at 3,338,500 Japanese Yen, which was the equivalent of about £21k back in 2022. Now that figure has risen to 3,700,400 Yen, but owing to the way exchange rates work, that translates as… about £19,250 in good old sterling.

And it’s not like the Subaru’s brother - the esteemed Toyota GR86 - is ever on sale long enough here to make that a realistic alternative. So seriously, give us five minutes to Google ‘japan uk car export cost’...