[GoingTooFast]

2013 Subaru BRZ

Naturally, then, if everything is decent then the only place to go is... better. That's how you get to a brand like Subaru deciding to make a sports car and using, as a guide, the Porsche Cayman. And we do mean literal guide. During testing, Subaru engineers took a white Cayman on their international travels

The result, as we know by now, is the BRZ – B is for Boxer, R is for Rear-wheel drive, Z is for Zenith, as in the best. The quest was to "get a new level of driving confidence," and that resulted in traditional sports car themes: low, with short overhangs, a compact engine and a low center of gravity. The CoG is lower than a Ferrari 458 Italia, and at 18.1 inches it's also lower than the Cayman, the Mazda Miata and RX-8, and the BMW M3.

The Cayman comparisons aren't out of place, nor is the suggestion – again made by McHale – that Subaru built a car that feels like a sports car from 20 or 30 years ago. True, it isn't a Cayman, but it will cost easily 20 grand less than a Cayman* and yet provides easily more than seven-tenths of the Cayman's pure cornering ability, and that's probably closer to eight-tenths, but we won't know until we get more time with the car. And it does bring back happy days of yore passed on Midwestern back roads in '80s Celica Supras and Preludes and first-gen Miatas. Those were good times, and so is the BRZ.