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I can tell you my story. Between 2000 and 2007 I drove 97 horse power and 135 horse power toyota celicas. In 2007 I have swapped in a 3rd gen 3sgte into my last celica, engine management system etc etc and it was dynotuned to 260 to the wheels. Difference between that and standard models was night and day. Now I drive a truck and it takes a century to accelerate to normal driving speed from dead stop. Not to say that I push my truck but having been hooked on turbo powered bundle of fun for 3 years it is very painful to drive anything this slow. Which brings me to the next point.
All this talk about how much power ft-86 should have or should not have... When it boils down to it... sporty looking cars are not fun to drive. Yes they are cute and you can step on the gas every once in a while but that is all there is to it. Modifying such cars is often costly and result is statistically more expensive per horse power gained than purchasing a sports car right of the bat. On the other hand for all those who want to have fuel economy.. they are barking up a wrong tree if you ask me. You should not be driving a sport(y) vehicle if you want to save on gas. You need to be driving something like a prius. Small, slow and looking like someone ran out of creativity when building it.
I still have some doubts about ft-86 but if I had to make a suggestion to toyota I think they should offer this car with a slowpoke engine for $20,000 and have that engine either easily and cheaply upgradable or at the very least offer a sports package for additional lets say 5 grand that would allow SIGNIFICANT boost to power gain.
On a side note there is inherent problem with sport cars. They are very expensive to drive and I can testify to that first hand. Driving my engine swapped celica pushing 15/19mpg eating 93 octane was hurting my pocket but not as much... have I been driving something like a mitsubishi evo 10. Insurance+bank loan+gas make it a $1000/mo car. My co-worker was driving his STI spending that much. I have been peddling around idea of getting an evo and even by my very cautious guesstimations I would be paying probably at least 700 per month even though I am over 25, have perfect driving record etc etc.
And this brings me to the last point. Reason why evo is being put on hold is because it costs an arm and a leg and all ex-boy racers who are now out of college do not make enough money to be able to spend that much money on a car unless they still live with their parents and their college has been paid for through scholarship/parents. Some exceptions considered of course.
In any case 2012 is still a very long time away and possibly even longer until this car hits america so until then I think I am going to keep driving my truck.
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