Gadgetory

what car raises the price point of scion by thousands puts Toyota back in the sports car game and put Subaru and Toyota in bed this one the groundbreaking Scion fr-s let's drive it and check the tap well here it is the car the Toyota and Subaru have been introducing for years I got sick of covering this thing at the auto shows and it's constant pre-production unveilings the Scion fr-s is the one Toyota gets in the US and then there's going to be a Subaru BRZ virtually identical we'll cover that one separately the basic concept is the same though a compact Supra kind of car low slung really a 2+2 two-door it's meant to be an affordable little pocket rocket like Toyota hasn't made in eons if ever now inside this car you're gonna find what I think is interesting dose of Nissan GTR different company entirely but it's this real kind of gutsy almost a throwback retro look there's some faux carbon-fiber here I hope it's not real not at this price it couldn't be and everything in here is very machine-like very mechanical it's a nice change of pace from what you'd expect in a low priced car as you can see the display is very minimal it's a black and white it's kind of a you know crunchy segmented character display so I would recommend an upgrade if you do that there's one choice you can go with these guys it's called the bespoke head unit it's going to give you a color touchscreen it's going to give you some connectivity there's also going to be Pandora streaming built in and get this Twitter and Facebook updates and Yelp access and that by the way is a scorching deal at eight hundred and forty five bucks in addition this car has one of my biggest gripes of modern vehicles an overly compressed speedometer it's the smaller gauge on the left of the big tach right there it goes up to 160 which I suspect is wishful thinking in this car but even worse than that it's not even a full circle gauge as a result all the mileage speeds you're ever gonna be driving are all wedged in down here at the bottom so the gauge becomes useless one needle width is almost five miles an hour then we have the base 6-speed manual which makes total sense to me in this car but you can option this guy into a 6-speed automatic now the Subaru Toyota marriage gets most interesting here under the hood this of course is a scion product the Toyota Motor Corporation product but notice the stamping on the fender well and the sticker in the door jamb Subaru makes this car and this is a Subaru engine it's a 2 liter flat for boxer I mean who else would make such a thing you've got 200 horsepower 151 foot-pounds of torque numbers that don't look stunning on paper but adequate 0 to 60 happens in either 6.2 or 6.4 seconds by most estimates depending on whether you got the automatic or the manual and the weights a little different the mpg is real different 20 to 30 with a manual 25 34 with the automatic that's a big difference folks by the way this engine uses another recent trend in technology a hybrid fuel injection system a combination of sequential port injection which you see on these runners and direct injection depending on what part of the power band it's operating now I don't know what the crash safety ratings are on this car don't normally delve into that but I do know this this is the very best car in the world in which to get a paper cut let me show you why first of all here's a little folder that holds the owner's manual there's a first-aid kit very tidy one then here in the trunk is a mini first-aid kit including tweezers and things for magnifying stuff compression bandage and more and finally in this briefcase sized emergency kit you've got jumper cables a survival wrap more medical supplies a floating flashlight and a hose clamp what do they think is gonna happen while you're driving this car okay when the FRS is on the road that's where you realize the formula works a lightweight car rear-wheel drive with the right amount of power not overwhelming what I notice right off the bat is this is one of those few cars you can actually floor frequently and not get in trouble that's partly because the suspension chassis handled the power well and partly because there's not too much power now nevermind what you see on paper there's a broad flat spot from like three to five thousand rpm maybe a little bit higher the power doesn't gag there but it definitely shaves off a bit and that's part of what gives this car I think a real tractable feel it's actually a lot of fun although it's not what a lot of carmakers go for these days another thing we noticed about the FRS is got a real firm mechanical shifter the clutch effort and take-up is just about perfect I love this clutch it's about as good as that in the 911 and that's saying something now as much as I love the gearbox in this car I've got to check out the automatic it's got panels as I mentioned those can be a gimmick if the transmission isn't as quick as your inputs on the paddles and the reason I looking at that automatic because they talk about it being quite advanced and this car is the kind you'll probably have as your only card as a result it's nice to have a well tuned Sport Automatic especially with the big mpg bonus you get in this particular installation now the car is a little unrefined it's face but it's inexpensive and lightweight so you do get a lot of road noise coming through the engine noise I like the road noise I could live with a little less of it doesn't give you the feeling of quality which a $24,000 Scion does need to aspire to a little bit and being a lightweight car with sufficient power and rear-wheel drive it really has true sports car dynamics that's kind of a long tedious way of saying you can steer with the accelerator or the steering wheel or both that's fun if pricing the FRS is real easy as a first-year car the options are quite limited manual transmission cars twenty five thousand dollars delivered eleven hundred more for that automatic which I have to look into and then eight forty five for that bespoke high-tech connected head unit I would definitely do that all in this car has got a lot of scene that DNA but it needs a little more oomph around the mid rpm you