Long-Term Tester Update: I Don't Ever Want to Give It Back

Mark "Bark M." Baruth
by Mark "Bark M." Baruth

For those of you who haven’t been keeping track, I’m now a little over one quarter of the way through my 24-month Fiesta ST lease. It’s hard to believe that I’ve had the car this long, but it’s true. I just clicked past the six-thousand-mile mark on the odometer, and I’m just about to make payment number seven, so I’m driving it a little less than I’m permitted to by my lease. That being said, I have driven it more than double the amount of miles that I’ve put on my Boss 302 during the same timeframe.

As I was driving it to Ohio this week from my Old Kentucky Home, chewing up the hilly I-75 North route between Lexington and the Greater Cincinnati Area, a terrible thought occurred to me:

In just about seventeen months, I’m going to have to give the FiST back, and I absolutely don’t want to.

You see, as I mentioned above, the Boss just doesn’t get much work nowadays. I even put some new BF Goodrich Comp-2 tires on it this summer with the hopes of doing some track days (or, G-d forbid, autocrossing), yet they’re still nearly sticker-new. With the exception of picking up the kiddos from school, the Boss has been relegated to doing what Special Limited Wowzers Editions Mustangs do best: sitting in the garage and appreciating in value.

Why, you may ask? Simple. The Fiesta has proven to be a better car. Ludicrous, you say ( or even “Ludacris”)? Not really. The Fiesta is no less fun in daily driving duty than the 302. You can’t drive the 302 much faster than you can the ST on a public road without putting yourself in serious danger of a Reckless Driving citation. In my most recent appearance on The Smoking Tire podcast, Thad and Chris and I all agree — there is no better car per dollar than the FiST. On a California canyon road run or a Kentucky Bourbon Trail run, there aren’t many cars that would show their taillights to the Fiesta, and those that do more than double its sticker price. I simply don’t understand why anybody looking to have a cheap, fun car would buy anything else. The Focus ST might have better performance numbers, but it doesn’t match the Fiesta for pure driving fun.

Secondly, it’s much, much more practical for everyday usage than the Mustang. It costs far less to operate (thanks to fuel mileage that’s about 50-percent better), it is much easier to get the kids in and out of, and, perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t cause every single redneck in a pickup in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to challenge me to Forty Rolls on the highway. It’s no secret that I like a little bit of attention on the road, but there are days when you just don’t want to deal with kids hanging out of the passenger windows of their cars attempting to Instagram your bright yellow pony car.

Lastly, I hopelessly, foolishly, and perhaps irrationally love it. I am waaaaaaaay outside the target demo for this car, both generationally and economically, but I feel good when I drive it. It puts a smile a mile wide on my face every time, and there’s just no good way to measure that. I hate when the buff books put some totally subjective rating like “Fun Factor” or “Gotta Have It” rating in car reviews, but my tiny Blue Oval product would score a solid ten in whatever qualitative rating you want to give it. It’s a freaking hoot.

However, in addition to the inevitable lease-end date, there are two looming specters over the FiST’s presence in my driveway (yes, I have a three-car garage, and no, there isn’t any room for the Little Fiesta That Could in it, thanks to my children’s ever-growing collection of toys), and they’re both going to be made by Ford Performance.

Specter Number One: The Shelby GT350. Yes, I realize that buying a GT350 would pretty much be going in direct opposition to all the comments I just made about the Fiesta versus the Boss. But man, that engine. That gorgeous, flat-crank, high-revving V-8. And that sticker price — it’s actually cheaper than the Boss 302 was when you consider inflation. But I’m pretty sure that I’d break Experian’s computers if I tried to get a loan for the GT350 while keeping the Boss and the FiST, which means that one of them would have to go. And as much as I love the FiST, I don’t really know if I could pick it over the Boss. Yes, I know that the GT350 and the Boss would both be fulfilling the same non-functional role in my garage…fudge; even I can’t make a rational case for keeping the Boss and buying a GT350. Okay, so in this scenario, the FiST stays and the Boss goes — assuming I can even find a GT350 to purchase. Fine.

However…

Specter Number Two: The Focus RS. Yeah, this one is actually the real threat to the FiST. I don’t need two hot hatches, and there’s no denying that, as Matt Farah said in our podcast, which you’d know if you followed me on Cyber Dust, “There’s no way that Ford can fuck (the Focus RS) up.” It’s going to be remarkable. It’s going to have an ungodly launch. It will be just as practical as the Fiesta is — actually more so. All that being said, the price is going to be decidedly un-FiST-ish. If it checks in at around the same price as its competitors (Golf R, WRX STI), then we’re talking close to 40k — or, nearly two FiSTs. Ugh. I don’t need another car payment that exceeds $600 a month. Okay, so in this scenario, the Boss goes and I have two Ford hatchbacks? Well, that doesn’t make any sense at all. Hmm. I think I need to think about all of this a bit more.

Anyway, in any and all scenarios, it appears that the FiST has more than proven its long-term viability in my stable. Which means that I’m seriously sad that I have to send it back when I’m done with it. I know, I could buy the car at the end of the lease, but that just wouldn’t be very Barkish. Plus, there are some nice tax implications involved in a lease when one is trying to find a way to get rid of some pesky 1099 income. Hypothetically speaking, that is. So when it’s time for Zippy (that’s his name, btw) to go to the great Car Lot In The Sky, a new lease is much more likely than a purchase.

Unlike TST’s Chris and Thad, I plan to make exactly no modifications to mine, outside of some upgraded brake pads. That means that in February of 2017, some lucky B&Ber will be able to head to a Ford store and get an unmolested FiST with about 20K on the clock for a silly good price. And I’ll be that much better for having borrowed it from its future owner for a little while, and that much worse for not getting to spool up that turbo one more time.

Mark "Bark M." Baruth
Mark "Bark M." Baruth

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  • "scarey" "scarey" on Sep 11, 2015

    "I know being a car guy is mostly not about making rational decisions" If I knew how to make rational decisions, I wouldn't be a car guy ! If you have found something that tops the Mustang in the fun department, hang onto it like grim death...

  • Machplane Machplane on Sep 14, 2015

    I think if your finances work and the market for Boss 302s are good, you should be able to justify getting both the Shelby and the FoRS to replace the Boss and the FiST. Theoretically you can sell the Boss, which like you said on TST, will probably go up when the Shelbys first come out due to limited supply. Proceeds from that sale will probably cover a big chunk of the price of the Shelby, then when it's time to turn in the FiST, you can also justify moving up to the FoRS since by that time your children will hopefully be bigger than they are now. Of course, that all hinges on if you can make it work financially.

  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
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