Well, I got a letter from the toyota/scion dealer yesterday congratulating me on the 2-year anniversary of buying the FR-S. All I could think was, damn I miss my MINI.
Keep motoring everyone and enjoying the best car ever designed.::

 

What's the big differences between that and the Subaru BRZ? If memory serves I read they're both essentially Subaru designed?

 

FRS and BRZ and basically the same car. I bought my son the BRZ and the engine bay has Toyota written all over it. By the way, my son hates the fact that my 04 JCW is faster and handles better than his 13 BRZ. He hates it even more that my stock, resonator deleted, exhaust sounds better than his Invidia cat back aftermarket set up.

 

heh Nice. I've always found cooperative projects interesting. Sometimes they work out pretty well (Plymouth & Mitsubishi motor in the 90s from my experience), others not-so-much. We'll see how this one pans out, see more of the FR-Ss out & about than BRZs.

 

They kept the BRZ as a limited production per some of the dealers. We were not even allowed to test drive one until our financing was in place or we had cash in hand to buy it. We tried 3 dealers in Arizona and 2 in California. I was trying to buy it for my sons 16th birthday last year but I told them to pound sand because I was not wasting my time or effort before I could even test drive a car, I don't care what brand it is. He ended up getting a new Honda motocross race bike. Then they finally broke free with the BRZ last September 1st. 1 day after his birthday, so I ran over and test drove it and bought one for him. They are a fun car to drive but I still like my MINI better.

 

the FRS / BRZ would be my "other" car choice if i were to ditch the mini; however, i feel they are quite over priced for what they are new, and still "too new" to get one at a deal used....

they also look like a nightmare to work on (the headers look like an octopus or something), and there seems to be little room with regards to "affordable" bolt ons, or even bolt ons that really provide any real power gains (say vs an R53 where $200 or so will give you 20-30 hp).

otherwise, the difference between the FRS / BRZ is mostly cosmetic; the lights and bumpers are slightly different (very subtle) and the interiors are the only real changes from car to car.

 

'Affordable' is definately the key word.

Between http://www.ft86speedfactory.com/ and http://perrinperformance.com/ there a lot of options for a lot of power. However, we're talking thou$ands to get the large gains with turbo or supercharger kits. These kits will net you 100+hp for some of the smaller gain number. There are tuners that can tune the car further once its turbo'd or supercharged and get a ton of power. Very little of it is within the reach of most peoples budget however.