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The people on the blogs are obviously going to complain about this cars hp. It's the only negative thing about it. (Don't take this out of context because I understand it has quirks, such as our cricket problem, etc).
People who purchased a different car (or cannot afford to purchase a new car) tend to defend their choice... those Mustang and GenCoupe owners bashing the FR-S call the car slow. The FR-S owners bash the Mustangs and GenCoupes by calling them obese, horrible steering feedback, tons of body roll, whatever.
The fact is, there are many different types of markets based on many different types of consumer wants/needs. For some, that happens to be overweight cars with lots of horsepower and torque. For others, that happens to be a car that is lightweight and easy to toss around, at the expense of straight line power.
I love my FR-S and knew what I was getting before I got it. I had no expectations of smoking muscle cars at stop lights. I wanted a lightweight vehicle (under 2800 lbs) that offered good gas mileage and had great styling. What I ended up getting was even better than my initial wants/needs, which included rear wheel drive, low center of gravity, good weight distribution, and great aerodynamics.
The thing is, it's hard/pointless/impossible to change certain things about a car. I don't think a 3800 lb muscle car is going to be dropping down below 2800 lbs without pretty much rebuilding the car from scratch and only making the outside shell look like the original car. Likewise, things like aerodynamics and center of gravity are incredibly difficult to significantly alter. Even with a big wing, front lip, and rear diffuser... some cars still have bad aerodynamic shapes between hood, roof, etc.
On the other hand, it's pretty easy to make more power. Yes, it requires the aftermarket (obviously), but it's not as difficult in comparison. The sticker price on a 2013 Mustang GT (which is considered a fantastic bang for the buck performance wise) has 420 crank horsepower (I'm assuming roughly 360 whp) for $31,000 base msrp... so if you consider a base msrp of $24,500 for the FR-S, you're looking at $6,500 difference... and I'm pretty sure you can get the FR-S to 360 whp for that much. Obviously, the same amount of money spent on the Mustang is going to yield far more power... but at what point does excessive power become overkill for anything besides dedicated drag racing? Regardless, my point here is that it is easy to make power, and much harder to change other performance characteristics... so if the complaint is the lack of power with the FR-S vs the obesity of the Camaro SS, I'd rather take the lighter car and make it faster.
My 2 cents.
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