And there-in lies the problem with why you can't get a great car at a good price today, and what initially attracted me to the FR-S's promise of being a "basic" sports car. With the exception of the suspension, I don't consider any of this a necessity.

Heck, if I could get it with no TCS, manual windows and no radio, I would! Everybody says they want a back-to-basics car, but from what I can tell very few of us really do want it. Every gadget in a car costs money, whether its there because we want it, the government mandates it or the car company insists on it.

OK, climbing down off my soapbox now. Somebody get me a beer....

Sounds like you want an FR-S then. I was replying to the previous comment that $28k for the limited trim was crazy.

You are one of a very very small group of people that would want a car with no radio and crank windows so you are always going to be SOL. I can understand not wanting the other features, but it is just a fact of life that your desires are pretty uncommon and therefore are going to fall on deaf ears.

You are correct though. The car manufacturers more than ever are forcing you to take options you don't want to get ones that you do. Honda started this a long time ago by not offering any options (just trim levels) and the latest company to jump into that game is VW. You used to be able to order a VW any way you wanted, but now if you want a sunroof you need navigation. If you don't want vinyl seats you need a sunroof which requires navigation...and the trend continues. All of a sudden you are looking at $6k in options to not get vinyl seats (it's no mistake they don't offer cloth either). It sucks from the consumer standpoint since we aren't really seeing the decrease in pricing that supposedly comes along with the streamlining of their production. The mfr is keeping it all as profit.

i wish i could see the world with rose colored glasses like you do. 300hp sports cars at $26k for everyone! if it were that easy then don't you think everyone would have done that already? why would nissan even bother to sell the z?

the logic you are using with the 2 cars you mentioned only look at the cost of parts and completely ignore economics. oh, hyundai can build a turbo sports car for 26k msrp, surely toyota can! lol knee grow please! you're talking about a korean car company! you can't compare korean car prices to japanese car prices at all, the korean won has a much more favorable exchange rate compared to the japanese yen and labor costs are still far lower than they are in japan. that's why hyundai and kia can offer similar content in cars at a lower price than the competition. concerning the impreza, hello economies of scale? the impreza is subaru's bread and butter compact sedan! it's not a low volume sports car. economies of scale state that the more units you sell of something, the lower each unit will cost to make. because pretty much most of the car aside from the turbo equipment are shared between the wrx and the impreza, the sheer volume of units sold allows them to lower the cost of each unit, even though it has awd and a turbo.

if the corolla was awd, and toyota decided to sell a turbo 260hp version of the corolla, i'm sure they'd be able to sell it for 26k. but a 26k turbo frs? when the assumption is the standard frs will be 25k? i wish i could be as optimistic as you but that just sounds damn naive.

and by the way, i have already made these exact same arguments multiple times on this forum. i'm really tired of new members coming on here every 3-4 months and hearing the exact same argument and giving the exact same info back every single time. it may be a new discussion to you but i've argued the SAME thing about the SAME 2 CARS several times with several different members. it's a extremely dead horse that you guys are beating. and btw the moar powah crowd are the ones that started it this time.

a turbo in reality would only cost them a grand to produce in materials, but cut the cost of ever making the internals for the NA engine and make forged internals instead, add a turbo, subie has plenty of them, add a few sensors and an intercooler and you're good to go

in reality they can do all that themselves for about $1200 then mark the car up another 3800 to make a profit

Yea, I gave up that ghost a long time ago, just making my point which leads to...


That's what really gets my cane stuck in the grate... I understand economies of scale and all that, but Geez at least make the packaging similar.

Also don't give me things that have nothing to do with driving and have everything with selling me a service (OnStar). I won't buy a recent model GM car for just that reason although I have more than (literally) 750K miles in GM cars since I entered driving age.

Maybe I need two beers...

I agree with you on this. A 30k FR-S can be made with a turbo and a sport package if the base price is $22,500. The turbo would cost $4,000(especially if the engine is shared with the WRX) and a sport package would be $2500-3500 for 17-18'' lightweight rims(Enkei?), 2/4 piston brakes, and .7 inch shorter springs with slightly different spring rates and a lip spoiler. I could see all of that adding the weight up 150 lbs to 2,900 lbs which is still lighter than a Cayman base at 2,974 lbs. It would be the truest Cayman fighter there is but I still wouldn't buy it because I loathe the turbo engine feel of most F/I cars I have driven. But at $30k-32,000 that would be a sweet competitor.

:word:


Question is how much would it cost to put in a 300hp H6? :D

I think the weight/price would get a bit more out of control and folks might call it a muscle car.:D

Too lazy to search, are they 290mm? That's the stock WRX size, which were a little inadequate for a ~3300lb car. Those same brakes on a ~2800lb car will be fine. Yeah they're sliders and not fixed, but the ballers will fix that.

You really should drive some of the newer turbo models coming out now. Twin scroll turbos have almost eliminated turbo lag and they can create a nice flat torque curve starting at a very low rpm. It isn't just bmw anymore either although they were the first to really go to the twin scroll design on a mass market basis. Twin scrolls are showing up in cars all over at much lower prices...even economy cars

If a wrx/brz has a lag heavy turbo with torque that falls off early I will be disapointed, but seeing as this is a brand new engine designed to be a turbo I fully expect subaru to take advantage of the latest technology. It had better have a twin scroll design....

Hold on a minute, SUB just said he hates turbo engine feel?????
I am in shock :O

a proper twin scroll manifold for an H engine would be a pain in the butt. A lot easier with an inline engine.

Full-race makes 'em, pricey though.

You think? I don't know much about exhaust design, but if you look at the OEM headers the opposite pairs of cylinders join up in front of the engine, the 4 pipes converge into 2 that sit right next to each other. In that case, putting a twin scroll is easier than a single scroll, since you don't even need to merge the 2 pipes...right?