Scion FT-86 FR-S

[fernan2]

it's benn a long time since i posted something here but, here i go!

to be honest this car is so fricking awsome, that it could have a Kia emblem everywhere and would still buy it! just look at this.

[u2b]He0RxDe07Vg[/U2b]

as long as they build it in japan and meke it RWD with a subaru engine, ill be happy with the car.

[Siriusly.Andrew]

Originally Posted by fernan2

it's benn a long time since i posted something here but, here i go!

Long time no see, I'm surprised there wasn't any laughing about 200hp :P

Nice find though. I'm going to be mesmerized by this video all afternoon now. The way the light hits the car is amazing.

[oneday]

Originally Posted by Dimman

Oneday and Ryun84:
This is the internet, grow some thicker skin you pansies...

I'm not the one acting all butt-hurt because a car might be labeled as one brand instead of another.

Originally Posted by Dimman

As for informing me of Toyota and FHI's joint business relations to shock and amaze me? Fuck off and read some of my earlier posts. I know what I'm talking about, this isn't news, or even correct (20ish% does not make a majority...).

Not amaze, simply inform. And no, I won't fuck off nor will I read any more of your posts then I need to because I do not think that you know what you are talking about*. Based on your blind-hatred for Scion combined with the Toyota/Subaru leg-humping I was not sure if you were aware of the FHI/ToMoCo relationship--which is definitely not "news" but you'd be surprised by the number of people that don't know that.

*Case in point: 20% does make the majority (controlling interest) when the other 80% is comprised of individuals and/or companies that own between 1% and 19% each.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Here's what Scion's innocent little marketing-driven brand will do to the FT/R-86/S if it gets a hold of it. It will turn it into a terrible handling car.

As you have been quick to point out: Scion is a marketing/branding tool. Toyota & Subaru are developing and tuning the car. Therefore, no matter which brand the FR-S/FT-86 gets badged as, any handling dynamic blame (and/or praise) will be ToMoCo's and FHI's.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Why? You see Scion has been selling slow, front-wheel drive cars aimed at impressionable youth. Not news. It also has a ridiculous 'racing' program in which Scion-looking cars compete in drift, drag and time-attack events and now videos such as Tanner Foust's street drift. Also not news. It has a huge percentage of douchey fanboys that rivals the post-Fast and Furious Honda scene.

All this means what exactly? Scion shouldn't be allowed to sell a RWD car because they haven't in the past? Brilliant. Besides, no other brands or racing organizations have been successful with "look-alike" cars.

Originally Posted by Dimman

The FT/R-86/S will have an incredibly able chassis if tuned to take advantage of it. This comes from moving the short boxer engine behind the front axle and as rear-ward as possible, centralizing mass. This creates what is known as a low polar moment of inertia. What this does for us is allow the car to be potentially very responsive to steering input and turn in very quickly. And in case anyone forgot it is RWD.

Wow, is all of that supposed to be a bad thing? Because, damn, that sounds like every thing I usually look for in a performance car--and everything every track car I've ever owned has possessed. Having a car with a low CG, good cross-weights, & near equal f/r balance typically means a neutral handling car, and are definitely not things I expect (or would look for) in a Toyota (save the LF-A) a Subaru (especially a WRX or STI) or a Scion. So this car could be a game changer for any brand.

Originally Posted by Dimman

By now maybe some of the more insightful readers (and maybe SW20 drivers) will see where I'm going with this...

I'm not sure where you were intending for that to go, but I saw it point towards something about RWD cars with horizontally opposed motors nestled low and aft of the front axle being a litigious nightmare for the brand and cause said brand/model to fail. Was I close?

FWIW, there is this little shop in Stuttgart, that, for the last 40 years, has been putting out cars with a motor that hangs _behind_ the rear axle. I think they've done alright with their platforms in both racing and street application. I could be wrong though.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Toyota has also had a lot of bad press recently regarding the throttle situation, which is being shown recently to have a lot more to do with driver error than previous media has reported.

Now let's put this all together...

Oh, now I see where this is going:

• If Toyota sells the FT-86 then old people and non-enthusiasts that buy cars as appliances and who can't control what their feet do or where their cars go the FT-86 will be an overwhelming success.
• If the FT-86 is sold as a Subaru then the middle aged outdoorsy people and soccer moms will make the FT-86 a success (just like the XT or SVX).
• If the FT-86 is sold as a Scion marketed to younger people that have enthusiast intentions (albeit many are more show car than go car types, but they are enthusiasts non the less) the FT-86 will fail miserably.

Did I get that right?

Originally Posted by Dimman

Toyota's worst-case scenario with a Scion FR-S:
Young douchey Scion fanboys wanting to imitate Tanner Foust's driving, trade in their heavier, doughy, less powerful, FWD tCs. They now have a RWD, lighter, more powerful, drift-capable machine. Scenes of carnage follow.

Or these...let's call them "drifters" for lack of a better name...these drifters could buy an AE86 (a Corolla of all things) with a silver top for under $10K and have the same thing: A low weight (1800lbs), RWD and 170whp. That never happens, wait....that _is_ what many drifters have.

Though I suppose if you want to make the argument that these prospective buyers are specifically looking for a new(ish) car that is $20-25K then the Genesis, Miata, S2000, 350Z, E36 could all be viable options. All are RWD with powerful motors and (most) are very nimble and regarded as good handling cars. Man, how do those car's manufacturers get any sleep at night? What, with the non-stop law suits and all.

Originally Posted by Dimman

So to prevent this Toyota will have lawyers and PR people telling them to dial in a fuck-ton of understeer if it comes out as a Scion. (Memories of the MR2?)

I'll change a few words from that to illustrate a point:

Subaru had engineers, test drivers, lawyers and PR people telling them to dial in a fuck-ton of understeer to keep kids from killing themselves. (The reality of the WRX & STI)

The point being: All cars sold are designed to understeer (have you driven an STI? Elephant is closer to the truth than pig) because most of the people on the road do not know how to properly drive when the back of the car is not behind them (for those that don't know [I'm sure Dimman knows this]: If your car is oversteering, lifting is bad.).

Originally Posted by Dimman

Peace!

Back-atcha

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by DantKR

...Give me a break, the ricer scene has been around well before Fast and the Furious and will be around well after.
...

I wanted to point this out. As the cheapest car in it's segment it's going to get the inevitable "ricing out" with a beercan exhaust, tall rear wing, and stickerz. If you want exclusivity there are cars out there but they are expensive$$$. You either going to have to live with it Toyota or Scion or get another car .

And Dimman, rage is not helpful when all you drop is f-bombs and douche bags. Grow a pair or stay the freak out of arguments.

[Siriusly.Andrew]

I'm with Dimman. Scion has marketed FAKE cars from day one. I'm pretty sure I can't buy a RWD tC from the dealership that comes with a NASCAR V8.

Why do you think theres so many trashed Scions? These kids who buy Scions see people like Tanner Foust drifting his tC looking NASCAR and they want a piece. They trip to the nearest Scion dealership and buy a tC and rally it into a tree 500 yards from the dealership.

I can't buy from a company that advertises cars they don't make. Scion is fake to me. Toyota is REAL. Subaru is REAL. They used their cars with their engines to make it in the performance world, no heavily modified platforms like the Scion teams are running.

Thats basically what Dimman was going at, I believe. Or at least thats how I interpreted it.

[oneday]

Originally Posted by Siriusly.Andrew

I'm with Dimman. Scion has marketed FAKE cars from day one. I'm pretty sure I can't buy a RWD tC from the dealership that comes with a NASCAR V8.

Doesn't get any realer than RWD V8 Camry. Does it?


For that matter you can't buy a STI like Pastrana drives or a Fiesta like Block or a Ferrari like Alonso, a Mazda like Dempsy, a Hyundai like Rhys, a Chevy like O'Connell or an Audi like Ekström.

Originally Posted by Siriusly.Andrew

I can't buy from a company that advertises cars they don't make. Scion is fake to me. Toyota is REAL. They used their cars with their engines to make it in the performance world, no heavily modified platforms like the Scion teams are running.

Looks like you will be walking (or driving a Porsche).

[fernan2]

to Oneday: wao!!! that was good! love all your Answers.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by oneday

Doesn't get any realer than RWD V8 Camry. Does it?


For that matter you can't buy a STI like Pastrana drives or a Fiesta like Block or a Ferrari like Alonso, a Mazda like Dempsy, a Hyundai like Rhys, a Chevy like O'Connell or an Audi like Ekström.



Looks like you will be walking (or driving a Porsche).

NASCAR... A spec series, they're not allowed to have anything different. Not something that I'm happy about either but I'll spare more unpleasantries...

The STI, Ferrari and Hyundai at least have the freakin' powertrain layout that you can buy off the showroom. Dempsy, O'Connell or Ekstrom I don't know who they are or what they drive off the top of my head, but I'll take a gamble and say that they too also share the fundamentals of the stock versions of their cars. The Scion drift car doesn't.

As for everything else I skimmed through, I'm not going to point-by-point it. I'll give you a more polite version.

Scion has clung to the Fast and Furious left-over scene. A lot of these buyers are image above substance. All talk no walk.

They're promoting 2JZ powered Scion drag cars and NASCAR V8 drift cars. This is marketing. Yet the 'performance-oriented' Scion buyer can only purchase 4 cylinder FWD 'cool' econo-boxes.

The Scion buyers that are influenced by this marketing strategy don't have the common sense to see through this and by a used Supra (or SC400 if they want the V8). They are sheep.

It is a waste of money that Toyota can be putting into solid, engineering development.

Toyota has more reason than most to be gun-shy about lawsuits.

They will dumb-down a car based on their perceived market and response to accidents, etc... (See bolded section.)

This already happened once with the SW20 MR-2.

This means I will have to spend more money and time screwing around with custom control arms, alignment, anti-roll bars, spring and shock settings, right out of the box. Instead of having a sharp car that I can enjoy a while before slowly going with the preceding mods.

Toyota needs to shake up its North American management bad.

[Dark]

@ oneday: I have a few questions for you.

Why does Scion come to existence?
Who are Scion's sale targets?
How much is bargain for most Scion customer?
What is demographic age of FT-86?
How much will the FT-86 cost?(you can use either business strategy lens or logical lens)
Why does Toyota come to existence 50years ago?
and Why Toyota's boss, Mr Toyoda, said he want to bring sport to the brand when he give up the only sport car to Scion? Is this business strategy or a lie?

Note: you can check the press in Toyota USA website, Toyoda said he wanted to bring sport image to Toyota.

I know I'm still undergraduate student in business management major, and I'm too young for these kind of stuff. More or less, I still understand what kind of business would make sense to a company. Some people say Toyota wants to save Scion. Yeah. It makes sense because losing a brand means losing a lot of money, but Scion would have been closed the door long time ago if it has not done good job. If they really make FT-86 a Scion, they are too childish to be hired by Toyota.

[Calais]

Originally Posted by DantKR

blah blah blah...

Originally Posted by oneday

see above

to both of you

yes toyota does do the engineering but if it comes out of toyota the "youth" that will be interested in it if it were a scion wont want it because toyota isnt "cool," right? so the lawyers wont be pressuring toyota becaus ethe buyers will be the enthusiasts and know how to drive this car and therefore the car will have less of a chance of being put into a tree by someone who dosnt know how to drive, hence the car comes as its supposed to and not a watered down version because toyota dosnt want to be sued.

@ oneday only did you really just compare porsche to toyota??? they are two completley different car companies, how many kids just out of school/college do you know that can afford a porsche? coz i dont know ANY in fact the only people i know who own porches are 30+ aleast and actually know how to drive and go and do the porsche driving courses if they dont, thats why porsche can pretty much replicate the track cars, thats also why ferrari can take the tech from F1 and put it into their raod cars, because of the price range only the wealthy can afford these cars and they dont drive like morons on the road because one scratch could equate to the cost of a door of a scion/toyota.

thats why i dont want it to be a scion because with the price target of this car and the demographic of scion the car wont only be re-engineered in the states it will be worldwide, because toyota wont want kids killing themselves in their ft's

look what has happened because of Englands rule on the front of cars the hood is going to have to be raised by 50mm to comply and thus is going to effect every ft sold in the world.

[dalli]

Then how can we prepare ourselves for such a car? This is a serious question, I am not looking for any trouble.

[70NYD]

Oneday, is your mind really wired to go Oneway? Cus although your post makes sense, there are more than Oneway to look at this. And as you smart arse case in point, if toyotas 16.5% stake in FHI (Subaru parent company, so more than 16.5% in Subaru directly) is the largest stake controled by a single entity, then it is effectively the controlling one, while it cannot bring decisions DIRECTLY, they can sway the vote significantly..

[FT-HS]

Logged on to say that I really enjoy reading Onedays posts

your posts are so good that your juggling several people at a time who dont know how to react to the sensibility coming from the arguments in your post

NICE

[DantKR]

Too much text sorry, have to break this up into 2 post:

Originally Posted by Siriusly.Andrew

I'm with Dimman. Scion has marketed FAKE cars from day one. I'm pretty sure I can't buy a RWD tC from the dealership that comes with a NASCAR V8.

Why do you think theres so many trashed Scions? These kids who buy Scions see people like Tanner Foust drifting his tC looking NASCAR and they want a piece. They trip to the nearest Scion dealership and buy a tC and rally it into a tree 500 yards from the dealership.

I can't buy from a company that advertises cars they don't make. Scion is fake to me. Toyota is REAL. Subaru is REAL. They used their cars with their engines to make it in the performance world, no heavily modified platforms like the Scion teams are running.

Thats basically what Dimman was going at, I believe. Or at least thats how I interpreted it.

There is a butt load of marketing that goes into any brand that does any kind of drifting, drag racing, rally racing. None of those vehicles come with any kind of setups that are found there. Unfortunately there is no RWD STi on the market either But I have to be honest, the image of someone running into a tree 500 yards away from the dealership made me laugh pretty good. But we both know that is far from the truth.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Scion has clung to the Fast and Furious left-over scene. A lot of these buyers are image above substance. All talk no walk.

This is your issue right here. You're assuming that 90% of people that buy Scions(TC, because we know the other ones people aren't buying to rice out, which are sell just as much if not more than the TC so I'm really starting to wonder what the point in your argument at all is) are buying them to rice out, when in fact, it's the other way around. 90% of people that buy Scions(TC) buy them because they want something decent for the money and don't want to buy a Hyundai Sonata.

They're promoting 2JZ powered Scion drag cars and NASCAR V8 drift cars. This is marketing. Yet the 'performance-oriented' Scion buyer can only purchase 4 cylinder FWD 'cool' econo-boxes.

Again, every brand has something that they use to market that you can't buy or come close to having that setup. The problem is, as it's been stated, outside of Lexus, Toyota as a whole doesn't have anything to use as their sporty image, this should change with the release of the FT-86.

The Scion buyers that are influenced by this marketing strategy don't have the common sense to see through this and by a used Supra (or SC400 if they want the V8).

They are sheep.

I think this is where you're 100000% wrong. I can tell you 99% of scion buyers don't even know about 1/2 the stuff you're bringing up. I can tell you someone buying a xB, xD, or iQ aren't really influenced at all by the drifting machine or RWD anything, and most likely neither are the TC buyers.

It is a waste of money that Toyota can be putting into solid, engineering development.

Toyota has more reason than most to be gun-shy about lawsuits.

They will dumb-down a car based on their perceived market and response to accidents, etc... (See bolded section.)

I'm sure Toyota has gained more money from Scion than lost.

Toyota's name is down due to all of the recalls, I believe that is the MAIN reason Toyota USA is even considering releasing the FT as a Scion, is not to save Scion's face, but to save the FT's face. There were no issues with accelerators in the Scions, but there were a ton(including driver error) of recalls going on with Toyota.

Originally Posted by Calais

to both of you

yes toyota does do the engineering but if it comes out of toyota the "youth" that will be interested in it if it were a scion wont want it because toyota isnt "cool," right?

Honestly, who knows? We obviously know that most of Toyota's buyers are generally over 40's for now.