Subaru BRZ Series Purple Debuts With Extra STI Bits And Self-Explanatory Paint

Purple. It’s an under-utilised car colour. Who doesn’t love a Midnight Purple Nissan Skyline GT-R, a Plum Crazy Dodge Challenger, or P1 OOV, that legendary pre-production McLaren P1 that handled all the car’s early media duties? Now, there’s another entry to the list of great purple cars: the Subaru BRZ.

Yep, in case you live in Europe and had forgotten as a result, there is a second-generation BRZ, just not for us. Boo. We can at least get its near-identical twin, the Toyota GR86. Oh, hang on, that’s been taken off sale too. Double boo.

Anyway, over in the US, one of the markets lucky enough to still get both of these cars, there’s a new special edition of the BRZ called the Series.Purple. No, we haven’t accidentally hit the full stop key instead of the space bar; that’s what Subaru’s calling it.

The Series dot Purple comes in just one colour (obvs): Galaxy Purple Pearl. That’s paired with a new Satin Silver shade for the BRZ’s standard 18-inch wheels, and some snazzy new black badging on the boot lid.

Available only with a six-speed manual, the Series full-stop Purple also has a couple of bits from the STI accessories catalogue thrown in, namely a short-throw shifter, and flexible V-bars in the engine bay, which, from what owners online say, seem to make a big difference in terms of torsional rigidity and steering response.

This still isn’t the full-on BRZ STI that people have been clamouring for since the first generation launched over a decade ago, though. Its 2.4-litre nat-asp boxer four is unchanged, meaning it still produces 228bhp and 184lb ft. That’s still good for 0-60mph in around six seconds and a 140mph top speed.

Should you live Stateside and fancy your BRZ in purple, then you’d better hurry: just 500 Series morse-code-for-E Purples are being made, at $35,445 a pop. That’s around £27,350, and $2750 (approx. £2100) more than the Limited trim on which it’s based.