Depends where you live. There are plenty of people on GTP who seem to live near some pretty awesome roads, pretty much made for cars like the Toyobaru.
I get what Kent is trying to say. I really don't think there's a lot of crossover between buyers of a V6 Mustang and buyers of a Scion, regardless of the price similarity.
We all know, and we've known for years, that American cars typically offer much more bang per buck, but that clearly isn't what everyone goes for otherwise there'd be no such thing as an import industry. You can tell even from looking around GTP that some people like the brute force approach in cars and others like the lighter, more incisive stuff. Some like a mix of both, but I can't see a huge amount of people cross-shopping BR-Zs and Mustangs.
I think you are stuck in the car enthusiast realm. Car enthusiasts make up probably less than 5% of the motorist population.
For the rest of the 95% terms like "driving dynamics" and "steering feel" are largely irrelevant. Hell, those terms are irrelevant to many so called enthusiasts as well.
Take for instance my friend. Let's just call him Bryan for now. He's a pretty smart guy, and he's for sure into cars. He drives a 2003 Saleen S281 Mustang. Now you try to sell him a sports car (to him, his car is a sports car, no matter how much you try to tell him otherwise) that has essentially 100hp less than his 10 year old Saleen, for $24,000. I don't think he even knows what a tossable chassis is. The closest he's probably ever came to the limits of cornering were achieved while doing donuts. He would probably laugh at the FR-S (I remember him saying the S2000 was pathetically slow, because of no torque, despite it really being no slower than his car) and, at the price point, buy a V6 Mustang/Camaro/Challenger/Genesis instead. And this guy is actually a self-proclaimed car enthusiast.
Now picture the non-car enthusiast (again, majority of motorists) who's either wanting to buy a sports car for the summer, for his daughter's 16th birthday, for his mid-life crisis, or because he thinks it will make him look good in downtown on a saturday night. When I say sports car in this context, it is very, very loose. I think to the general population, there are only a few categories of readily recognizable cars. Trucks. Ordinary Cars. Sporty Cars. A massive amount of vehicles fit in the last category, so I imagine cross-shopping has a very broad scope. Anyways, this motoring dunderhead might peruse through a few automotive reviews and come up with a list. Without really any understanding of subjective handling elements (feel, etc) this buyer will most likely boil down the decision to purely numbers and style. In this situation the FR-S is obliterated by the competition. Even cars like Camry's and Ford Fusions are technically *faster.* The only hope, in this circumstance, is for the FR-S to win on sheer outright sexual attraction. Again, I doubt it will. It's a good looking thing, but not unbelievably pretty, nor could it ever be considered badass or menacing.
I very much appreciate that Scion is catering to true enthusiasts with this car, but I feel at the same time they are alienating them at the same time with the rather high
base MSRP. I doubt very many of these cars will arrive at dealerships anything less than fully loaded.
