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After three years with the FR-S/86, my original reasons for buying the car have held true.
Despite the selling of this car as a track and drifting car, my priorities are different.
The things that really matter to me are four things.
1) RWD: It reminds me every moment (after years with sporty front wheel drive cars): how great rear-wheel-drive is. The car communicates with the front and the rear, without fucking it up by trying to combine them both, or by adding AWD.
2) MT: Less than 5% of cars sold are manuals. I feel like I am driving a sofa everytime I drive an automatic.
3) Precise Steering: Even the best sporty hatches or expensive sedans telegraph the steering to you. Not so in the FR-S. You sense the steering through your hands, and you feel the reaction of the steering even before you see it.
4) Lightweight: Even small cars are heavy these days, and the fancy suspension systems on many cars make car feel ponderous and remote. Even the best sporty sedans may react quickly but it feels unreal and computer-aided.
I remember what fighter pilots said when jets started using sophisticated avionics to help fly increasingly complex airplanes. They lamented that the F4 Phantom was the last pure "piloted plane". Sometimes I think that the 86 may be one of the last "driven" cars. Despite its lack of power, I would rather have the 86 than a Ferrari with its dual clutch automatic, or the GT-R with its computer aided launch algorithm.
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