Last week, reports surfaced that only 6,000 examples of the Subaru BRZ would be coming to the United States but with a recent comment by the president of Fuji Heavy Industries that the two companies plan to build 100,000 copies of the joint venture sports car each year – it looks as though the limited quantities of the new Subaru, Toyota and Scion sports coupes could have been exaggerated.
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Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd is the parent company of Subaru and Fuji Heavy president Yasuyuki Yoshinaga recently stated that the goal is for the Subaru Gunma factory in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture Japan to produce 100,000 examples annually. There has been no breakdown on how the production will be broken down between the Subaru BRZ, the Toyota GT86 and the Scion FR-S but considering that the United States will surely be one of the key markets – 100,000 units a year between the three vehicles would certainly seem to indicate that there would be more than 6,000 Subaru BRZ coupes sold in the US. Click here for a look at the original report that only 6,000 BRZ coupes would be sold in the US.
According to the enthusiast gurus at FR86Club.com, Toyota has already accepted 7,000 preorders for the GT86 while Subaru has taken 2,500 preorders for the BRZ version of the joint venture. No figures are given for the Scion FR-S and while the reports haven’t indicated whether these preorder figures are for the whole world but considering that the Toyota GT86 is not slated for US sales – these numbers most likely relate to preorders from around the globe. Should that be the case and just 9,500 of the intended production volume of 100,000 total units have been preordered, there shouldn’t be a whole lot of difficulty in getting your hands on one of these Subaru Boxer-powered sports coupes.
The other possibility is that the Subaru plant will build 100,000 combined units of the Subaru BRZ, the Toyota GT86 and the Scion FR-S but in an effort to offer some model differentiation between these literally identical sports coupes, the Subaru BRZ could be offered in limited volume while the Toyota GT86 and Scion FR-S will be the mass market model. Much like the production numbers, the prices for the Subaru, Toyota and Scion sports coupes have not been announced but comments by Subaru officials in the past have indicated that the BRZ could start in the area of $25,000. Perhaps the Subaru will come in with that price while the Scion FR-S will start closer to $20,000. This would leave plenty of pricing room between the two models while still keeping the FR-S in the relative pricing range of the Scion brand – although starting at $20,000 the FR-S will be the most expensive model in the lineup.
Source: FT86club
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