Leave The Damn FR-S/BRZ/GT86 ALONE.

An Open Letter to Subaru and Toyota:

You've made quite a splash with the FR-S/BRZ/GT86. Congratulations on a commendable design.

You might not find this letter of much interest, as I'm currently not in the market for a vehicle. However, I am a driving enthusiast, and I assure you, were I in better financial straights at this time, this would be a good contender for my first new car, ever. Simply put, there are few used cars to compare it with, at least ones that I'd feel good about the idea of maintaining. I can't just use my usual metric of 'oh, yeah, but I could just buy an old one and mod it, and still probably spend less than buying a new one.' And, unlike a lot of other modern cars that would fall by the wayside due to my hot rodding predilection, I can't just go out and build one myself, so to speak. 

I'll spare you reading the rest of my blog to let you know I like traditional American cars, though I've had plenty of imports and find them both different tools good for different jobs. I've owned a couple of Celica Supras and MR2s, both project level cars I didn't get to really experience in full but were mightily impressed by, and have some light Subaru experience as well. I have respect for both companies, their histories, and their products.

With that in mind - that, while I'm of the 'Stick a Small Block Chevy in it' mentality, I think the FR-S/BRZ is a great design as-is - and, I'll bet, one Porsche wishes it had thought up first. It's a true original and a great example of what Japan can come up with in the pursuit of a great sports car. Jeremy Clarkson would agree, and last I'd heard he was ultra-smitten by the Mercedes C63 AMG Black Edition. Nice company to have.

Most driving enthusiasts/car guys agree on the merits of the car, and while I'm not a new car buyer, I eagerly anticipate perhaps being able to pick up one of these used in a few years. I'll likely have to 'settle' for a first gen Miata, but while I've been in love with Chevies and their small block V8s all my life, and are very proud of GM's latter day renaissance, I'm fairly captivated by this car. And many new'import' models to me, or rather the class of cars the term represented when I was growing up, seems rather bloated now.

My SE-R Classic was ~2300lbs,  a new one is now 900lbs heavier. And that's roughly accurate for all cars made lately. The Honda Civic Si is closer in spec to a Prelude VTEC of 20 years ago than a Civic Si of the same era. Both a good and a bad thing, some would say. I started losing interest when new FWD 'compacts' were outweighing big block Novas. When Camrys and Accords started making my Whale Body Caprice seem svelte. Seemed like the import scene had had it's day, as legit world beating compacts became overshadowed by the new breed of 400 horsepower 'midrange' models. 5, 6, 7 hundred horsepower to be had, who cared anymore? Of course, I'll never get to buy one of these cars, but it's fun to bench race, isn't it?

For one, how many variants on the FWD 'hot hatch' formula can one lust after? Instead, look at this car, promising intriguing new possibilities in an age where every variant on every theme had seemed done already. We even have 'Jetsons cars' in the sense of the self piloting cars being developed. And flying cars, too, for the folks that don't think sliding into a ravine or getting into a head-on freeway collision seemed dangerous enough. And - as a wagon owner now, bravo - it even gives you a lot of the 'hot hatch' usability, unlike many other 'dedicated' sports cars that essentially say 'you'll be wanting another car if you actually have a life or feel like bringing anything with you.'

And frankly, cars like the Lexus LFA don't even show up on my radar. Not going to happen short of an 80's style recording contract, winning the lottery, a fat lawsuit, etc. The $110k ZR1 and slightly more frugal Z06 show up merely because of Bowtie love and the fact that if I were to spend such money, the return on performance is ridiculous, putting the car very much in LFA territory, aka some of the fastest production cars money can buy. If I decided to live in it in lieu of a house, it might even be quasi attainable! But still, I'll likely not own a new 'halo' car anytime soon, perhaps ever.

Not even if they accepted Food Stamps.

Even the WRX STi, while it was the car that really broke me originally on my pro-US stance on performance cars, nowadays I'm back into RWD V8 cars, and we have plenty to choose from in all shapes and sizes. It wouldn't make me show up at the dealership for a new one, as good as it is, because - again - I could get a used one and modify it for less money if I really wanted it. Turns out I like slip angle and burnouts and drifting - RWD stuff that AWD puts the kibosh on. It's a great car, Subaru, but I have options, and they're not going to make me forget about losing money watching the car depreciate. No offense, just my fiscal reality.

The FR-S/BRZ is something else - something made of Obtainium. I appreciate that, and the car's relative simplicity and restraint when some cars get away with being rolling iPhone docks.

And it's as close to a modern Elan as we're going to get. Not in the sense of a direct copy per se as in the Miata, but the glove the Elan threw down in the 60's as the car wars went nuclear on both sides of the Atlantic. V12 Jaguars, American and German V8s, etc. As Peter Egan said in this month's Road and Track, 'it instantantly makes you wonder why so many other sports cars were so large and heavy. What were they trying to accomplish that the Elan couldn't do? Support a larger engine? (Which, in turn, required a heavier car?)'

It's not 1500lbs, granted, but you don't have to carry tools with you just to make it to work, and compared to almost every car that isn't an Elise out there, it's quite svelte enough.

While it's an extreme example, and a bit of a stretch, to compare it to the Elan in a way, the FR-S/BRZ reminds people of how 'little' you require to create driving enjoyment. Chasing lap times and other numbers is fine in a way and great for the automotive world, as much of our efficiency and safety strides have been made at the race track, at least in the form of the seed technology. But not every car, not every driver's car especially, has to be a 'Supercar'. Yet, were this car somehow offered at this spec in the 90's it might be considered one, or damn close.

This car had only 76hp more than the FRS/BRZ, and
it's a legend you still can't touch for less than the cost
of a new Toyobaru 20 years later.

Mike Kojima has written reams on the SE-R Classic and he's gotten to drive who knows how many cutting edge cars, and owns one of the fastest and highly tuned 300ZX Twin Turbos in North America. Yet he loves the SE-R, still, some 20 years later, FWD and all. And the SE-R is simply good engineering and attention to the right details in a pretty ho-hum package, at least from a 'car guy' standpoint. I loved that car and was crushed when my well used example threw a rod, but it remains a high water mark in my automotive experience. And, after all, it was merely a hotted up Sentra. All 140hp of it. The FRS/BRZ is so much more special than that.

However, 200hp - JDM only output back in the day, for many platforms - doesn't seem good enough for the 'I want everything yesterday' crowd, and as there have been libraries written about car design and modification, immediately folks saw the FR-S/BRZ, said 'I'll bet a WRX STi motor would bolt right in', and the RABBLERABBLERABBLE calling for 'more horsepower!' hasn't stopped since.

Everyone is a critic, a 'tuner', a wannabe engineer, and has some 'really good advice'.

From the viewpoint of someone who has hot rodding in his blood, that can't even refrain from customizing the car he lives in on almost no budget, who wants a V8 swapped RX7 like no one's business, can I say this?

Leave it alone.

At least for now. The car has hardly been out six months yet, if that, and frankly folks are still getting used to something that has a lower cg than a Cayman and costs less than a Mustang GT. Like the Miata before it, folks are getting used to driving it the way it needs to be driven, but they're figuring it out and liking it. As the Porsche 914 crowd still likes to say, it's a car that makes you tighten the nut behind the wheel in pursuit of higher speed. That legend itself, part of the experience of going fast in the 'People's Porsche' was figuring out how to actually drive it in the fastest manner, instead of driving it like a 'lesser' car.

There is always the aftermarket, and I've already heard of 450hp BRZs out there. Whether you turbocharge it or not, the Genie is out of the bottle, and no doubt the import tuner crowd have been salivating and bench racing this thing since you've announced it, not even concerned with the car-as-it-is, and merely how they're going to 'make it better' even before the first journalist - or perhaps even test driver at the factory! - had driven it.

Folks put 5.0 Mustang motors in the Miata, too. We've got one driving around Venice, and it's a hoot like all hot rods are, I'm sure. But somehow the Miata sold plenty just how it was, and while it was certainly upgraded over the years, it was a long time before the Mazdaspeed Miata was necessary. And really, it hasn't been since. Not to sell an awful lot of cars of a type most companies don't consider 'viable'. Few people are storming out of Mazda dealerships because there isn't a turbo option from the factory for the Miata. Racing series grew up around the car. And Caymans and Boxsters still sell, despite being hindered from overtaking the 911. For about twice the price of the gem you're offering.

If you want to tweak it - why even ask, of course you will. Just this: listen to your audience like a good musician or stand up comedian would, and they'll tell you. Apparently - I haven't driven one yet - there's a bit of a flat spot in the torque curve. Perhaps it's an easy enough thing to tune out for next year's model. If the torque dip is fixable without major surgery, fix it and see if they're still whining.

Think about the Corvette and it's seats - Chevy merely had to listen to what every journalist said about the damn seats. It wasn't some vague thing that was hard to put a finger on.

Crystal Ball Alert - I can see the future, and it's the Internet. People will complain. About things they'll never buy in the first place. But they'll still do it. You'll get feedback - probably more than you want!

However, really, I loved my CRX Si, and the powerplant was...ok. I mean, really, a little flat in the torque department? Have they driven an older Honda? Or some of Toyota's revvier engines? It was hardly the centerpiece of the car, merely really not getting in the car's way. The D16's 6000 rpm power peak is only 100rpm over an LS3s now, hardly stratospheric, yet the car simply produces wide grins even today, when there are likely base model automatic Kias that can trounce it from a stoplight.

I think folks are so prone to nitpicking everything that such 'more powah' requests should be taken with an extra large grain of salt. The Internet's favorite pastime is posing as an expert, after all, guilty as charged myself - and while I'm sure the car is going to be developed and improved upon, it's entirely possible that the better course of action to lean towards is letting the car stand on it's own merits and letting people come around.

I used to think Miatas were 'girl cars' and mocked their tiny shifter, which I likened to an Atari 2600 joystick in the shadow of giant Hurst sledgehammers. This was circa 1995 when I was in high school, before everyone was on the internet, but if I could have been, I would have roundly mocked it, and perhaps even been taken seriously as I've always had a way with words. I'm sure there are legions of clones out there of the dumbass I was back then, if not even worse, and they're all over the net.

I've come around. I still like my redneck cars for what they are, but my last car was a Mercedes, and before I rediscovered my love for American Iron, the only American car I owned was a Chevy van, because it was...a van. For awhile I wouldn't consider American cars either. If I can come around, and around again, I'm sure other folks are capable.

When they don't seem like it, remind them that the 14.8 second quarter mile and 6.2 0-60 dash of the FRS/BRZ is faster than a:


1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS 0-60 mph 7.9 Quarter mile 15.2
1985 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z28 0-60 mph 6.9 Quarter mile 15.0
1995 Chevrolet Impala SS 0-60 mph 6.9 Quarter mile 15.2
1967 Ford Mustang (V8) 0-60 mph 7.3 Quarter mile 15.4
1988 Ford Mustang GT 0-60 mph 6.3 15.0 
1996 Ford Mustang GT 0-60 mph 6.7 Quarter mile 15.1
1995 Mercedes E420 (Auto) 0-60 mph 7.0 Quarter mile 15.1
1967 Lotus Elan SE 0-60 mph 7.9 Quarter mile 16.1
2010 Toyota Camry SE 0-60 mph 8.0 Quarter Mile 16.2
Every non-Turbo Toyota MR2
1989 Toyota Supra Turbo 0-60 mph 6.5 Quarter mile 15.0
1989 Mazda RX-7 Turbo 0-60 mph 6.6 Quarter mile 14.9
2009 Mazda RX-8 R3 0-60 mph 6.5 Quarter Mile 14.8
Most every BMW non-M 3 series before '98
All 2002-earlier Infiniti Q45s
All Non-John Cooper Works Mini Coopers made since 2002
2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS Sedan 0-60 mph 7.7 Quarter Mile 15.7
1973 Porsche 911S 0-60 7.7 Quarter Mile 15.1
1974 Porsche 914 2.0   0-60 mph 8.8   Quarter mile 16.5
1988 Porsche 944 Turbo   0-60 mph 6.5   Quarter mile 14.9
1998 Porsche Boxster   0-60 mph 6.3    Quarter mile 14.8


That's a small and very incomplete list. My SE-R and Si would belong up there, too, as would Project Roadmaster in all likelihood. The list of cars that this car nips on the heels of in acceleration, and would probably annihilate in cornering ability, would be much longer. 

No one buys those cars because they're 'slow'. Hell, the FR-S will beat a 76 Lamborghini Countach LP400 to 60 by .4 seconds. 

Line up. 

Tell the nerds to lighten up, relax, and congratulate yourself on making a great, unique, and fundamentally great driver's car in an age when everything seems to be a copy of a copy. Thank you. 

- The Actually Smart Car Blog, and drivers everywhere.