Subaru BRZ selling well beyond company expectations

While the sporty new Subaru BRZ will not go on sale until later this month in the US, Subaru parent company Fuji Heavy Industries has reported that sales in their Japanese domestic market are crushing company expectations – selling more than 4 times their projected sales targets through the first two months of sales in Japan.

The Subaru BRZ officially went on sale on February 3rd with the expectation of moving around 450 units per month but after two months on the market, Subaru has sold around 3,600 examples of the BRZ. Based on the company’s early estimates, there would be roughly 900 BRZ coupes sold through the first two months but with roughly 3,600 units sold through the first two months – the BRZ is besting company goals by better than 4 times.

In addition to selling at better than 4 times the expected rate, the Subaru BRZ news includes some interesting statistics. First of all, 28% of BRZ buyers are between the ages of 30 and 39 while another 27.5% of Japanese BRZ owners are under 30 years old. Better than 65% of the 2013 BRZ coupes sold have been equipped with a proper manual transmission while the most popular color choices have been Blue Mica, Satin White Pearl and Crystal Black Silica. We would expect that the brilliant blue (shown in the image above on the right) would be popular for US-issue BRZ coupes as well and while the American public can often be disappointing, we would hope that the majority of buyers in the US will opt for the manual transmission. In fact, there is already at least one Blue Mica BRZ running around the Detroit area. Click here for more on the new Subaru BRZ in Metro Detroit.

On the US front, the Subaru BRZ has already begun to exceed company expectations as Subaru has received around 1,000 pre-orders for the new rear wheel drive sports coupe. This is especially impressive considering that we don’t know how much the BRZ will cost – and considering the fact that there is a good chance that none of these people have driven the new sports coupe. The Japanese automaker only plans to sell around 500 BRZ coupes each month in the US with an annual goal of 6,000 units sold.

The 2013 Subaru BRZ officially goes on sale April 20th, 2012 and the sporty rear wheel drive coupe will likely start in price somewhere in the area of $26,000. The Scion FR-S, which is mechanically identical to the BRZ but with less “goodies” in standard form, starts at $24,200 when fitted with a manual transmission while the automatic will set a buyer back an additional $1,100. Based on that pricing, the Subaru BRZ should start somewhere in the range of $1,000-$1,500 above the Scion but considering that the Subaru lineup as a whole carries a higher price range than the Scion brand; the BRZ could see a slightly higher MSRP simply based on branding.

It will be interesting to see how well the Subaru BRZ and Scion FR-S sell in the US, as many consumers may feel that the naturally aspirated Boxer engine’s 200hp is a little on the lighter end for the US market. Ultimately, it will come down to real world performance measures compared against the likes of the top competitors in the rear wheel drive sports coupe class such as the Hyundai Genesis Coupe and the V6-powered Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro.