This weekend has been filled with all things automotive. Friday night was a car gathering. Saturday morning was another, in the afternoon there was a track event. Sunday morning was a historic car show. It has been a busy weekend running around to all the cool places with cool cars and cool people. Being that I don’t usually drive my dog around on weekends, I drove everywhere in my new Scion FR-S. I should have planned better though as I was in over my head.
Friday night theres a car get-together at a local Chick-fil-a restaurant. It starts off mostly with domestic makes and progresses into imported cars. I usually don’t go to these type of things because I’m near-dead tired on weeknights and I’m not looking to show off. A friend encouraged me to go though, so I caved in headed over after having a Red Bull.
After this weekend, I’m blue in the face from answering questions about the car. I want to give people little cards that say “No, its not all wheel drive. No, its not turbo. Yes, it is very, very fun to drive.” It is like driving around in a super model. It breaks people’s necks. People want it or at least want to know EVERYTHING about it. They want to be around it. Josh Taylor of this website will tell you the same thing about when he owned his Acura NSX. The car was a bit of a celebrity. It even got him VIP treatment at a club. I don’t know that I’ll get that in my FR-S, but it sure is a celebrity in its own sense.
The thing is this though. It deserves the attention. Toyota has not offered a front engined, rear drive sports car in the United States since the Supra was sold here. That is a long time if you think about it. Its been even longer since Toyota has offered such a car that was actually affordable. It actually was the Corolla GT-S (AE86). We had the mid-engined, rear drive MR2 a little more lately. That car didn’t really fill the void though (thanks mostly to the measly engine). The late model Celica could have been decent with RWD, but it was FWD and overpriced from dealer mark-ups. The Scion tC could have been as well, but (also like the Celica) was based on a FWD platform. Subaru has gone even longer without a rear drive anything, but at least had fun cars like Imprezas with big turbos. Toyota needed this car really. I’ve never seen one car capture this kind of attention. It gets more of it than most Lamborghinis and some Ferraris. This car shows that car companies shouldn’t deprive the enthusiasts of sports cars. Beige 4-doors and V6 cross-overs are good for selling in mass, but you need something that draws people’s attention and makes them swoon. “This is the beige 4 door car from the same company that makes this wonderful sports car.” It might make them proud of the brand. Looking back, that’s kind of how it was with Toyota’s old sports cars.
Why then couldn’t it have been a Toyota instead of a Scion?