So how many of you stop on on-ramps?

You just happened to be the person I quoted, but the entire post wasn't necessarily aimed at you. A number of people have expressed opinions in this thread that the car needs more power and that is my reply to those people. The BRZ certainly isn't the be all end all of cars, it's simply a good fit for the market it's aimed at. More expensive, more powerful cars have their place as well but the BRZ isn't meant to be among them. It seems we agree on that.

If that's the case I feel very bad for the 80% of people that are spending way too much money on gas.

I don't know about you guys but both my 06 WRX (Heavily Modified) and my 09 STI (Stage 2) went wide open throttle nearly every time I got in the car. Whether that would be freeway on ramps, merging and needing to get in front of a truck, etc. I like having a little bit of power. For me 350 WHP, is a very usable amount on a car that weights 3300 lbs.

It wasn't meant to be. If you look at the post I was responding to, the person had said that the car would have lower thresholds so people who had driven safe, FWD cars their entire lives could get into them and drive them safely. Lower speeds, lower grip, things happen slower, so people who haven't developed the skill with a nimble RWD car can develop it without ending up in a tree. For the same 25k, you can pick up a used C5Z06. And if that level of power and handling were accessible to this target demographic with new car interest rates and a warranty, we'd have a lot more wrecked cars.

You're reading insult where there is none. I'm not saying that everyone who is buying one is that sort of person, but it is clear that that is one of the target demographics. People who will be buying their first sports car. Or first RWD cars. There are other target demographics. This is also a great double duty auto-x daily driver. Or just plain fun to drive, somewhat budget friendly daily driver. And a great track car. I could absolutely see these getting a Spec racing series, like the MX5/Miatas have, or even getting a W2W class against the Miata.

Let me put it this way. The IS250 is a great "my first Lexus." I've had one.

First of all, I don't know anyone whose worried about gas when buying a toy sports car as a 2nd or 3rd vehicle which is what this car is marketed as. As long as the car gets decent mpg who cares?

What makes you think people are wasting a lot of gas? For cars that make good power/torque, that max torque figure usually occurs between 3-4k. That is a pretty standard shift range for people who aren't driving a prius or trying to hypermile. Hell, my car idles at 1100 rpm so shifting at 3500 rpm really isn't using much of the rev range at all.

Whoever was talking about max torque meant full throttle, I think that was pretty clear.

Even then, I don't think 80% of people floor the gas on their cars. I don't know where you live, but where I live, just watching the cars on the road start and listening to the engines you can tell everyone is taking it easy. I've personally floored it 1 time when accelerating to highway speed from an emergency stop.

I have to here in the Bay Area when obligated to by Red/Green onramp traffic easing. There isn't a choice.

I have those on my commute here in Atlanta. This is where I combine your thought with the one above about "when do people floor the accelerator".

I treat this as a drag tree. I know it's a 3 count between the two lights (one for each lane) so my goal is to catch up to the car in front of me when they merge and put as much room as possible between me and the guy at the light behind me.

Its amusing in my current DD, but I'm sure it will be much more fun in the FR-S.

And you don't have a problem with these right? My mom's fat slow SUV accelerates on those fine without full throttle.

I think we can all agree, having a lot of power can be fun, but it is by no means necessary when the vast majority of cars on the street do fine with less power that they never end up using anyways.

Never, not with my current car and not with a host of middling sedan rentals I had when I first moved here: Altima, Cobalt, Civic, Cruze (was really good actually), Camry... maybe another one or two I have forgotten.

Bingo! We are likely splitting hairs in nomenclature - specifically around what need and want mean - but really anyone who 'needs' more power than that delivered by a base model new car, is not someone I really want to share the roads with.

No it's not, Toyota and Subaru have said it themselves. This is supposed to be a drivers car with a pure driving feel and it was designed to be a "great entry level sports car" AS WELL.

Not sure why People are crucifying LSx for what he's saying, I agree with him 100%. What I said earlier was in response to people saying that this car is "underpowered", or claims that there's a serious "NEED" for higher horsepower which I still feel is untrue. For it's weight I wouldn't call this car underpowered, I'd call this car sufficiently powered and even more so for what Toyota/Subaru envisioned for it. Hell I stripped the mods (everything except the tune) off my SVT and it's making about 183 at the crank, I still blow by most people on the freeway and have ZERO trouble overtaking somebody, but there are also times when I find myself saying "had I the power I used to have, I probably could have jumped in that opening before the gap closed" (which btw is a VERY asshole way to drive and I under no circumstance advocate it; that's why they're thoughts and not attempted actions).
Truthfully I think this car is a great "stepping stone" in stock form. It's a great starter sports car and telling from the reviews it's very forgiving which is what people that aren't used to racing RWD or driving RWD during inclement weather need. From there you can either modify it and make more power to achieve what you want out of it or simply move on to a better car. The damn thing is going to be mid 20's in price, what the hell do people expect from it? Stop referencing GTI's, speed3's and such a point of power comparison; they're FWD (which are cheaper to manufacture) that are based heavily off of pre-existing platforms.


Either way, it's not a backhanded insult. It's a fact. At 200bHP on prius tires, things happen slower and at a speed that won't necessarily be a death sentence. Couldn't say the same if this thing had a hundred more horse and was riding on sport cup's.

Not by choice but the on-ramp on my commutes are parking lots during rush hour. However, often times its also not flowing because someone got the jitters and decided not to accelerate to merge and instead decides to slow down and wait for a huge opening so they can cruise in at 20mph into 75mph traffic.

I think my preference for having more power is because I have a choice to go faster as desired when desired. You are not "limited" by the power output of the car as you know there are plenty on tap. Somedays I am not in the mood to floor my car and rev the snot of it just to get up to speed quickly. Driving a 12 second car as a 14 second car is much easier than trying to make a 15 second car do a 14 second run if you can follow my reasoning.

You keep talking about flooring the pedal and wasting gas. You do realize you don't need to have the pedal to the floor to develop maximim torque right? Unless you are driving a diesel your car should have a redline well above the 3-4k range where most cars develop their maximum torque.

RPM alone is meaningless. Unless you're at full throttle the engine is only producing a fraction of what you'd see on a dyno chart at any given rpm.