When we awarded the Scion FR-S DFL in our three-way affordable-sportster test, many commenters both on TTAC and elsewhere pointed out that the FR-S supposedly wasn’t meant to be a complete package from the factory. Rather, the new hachi-roku was intended to be a platform for individual development, you see. By judiciously applying the finest in aftermarket upgrades, the FR-S would become a highly personal racetrack scalpel.

Well, to paraphrase Katt Williams, “The Scion do look like an outstanding platform on which to build one’s ideal track car… until a real outstanding platform on which to build one’s ideal track car pull up.” As it turns out, one of our Best&Brightest brought his lightly-modified “New Edge” Mustang GT to our test, and he was gracious enough to let your humble author put twenty or so laps on it.

How’d it do?

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The conventions of auto writing require that we come up with at least one labored metaphor for every comparison test, so here goes: You guys remember that movie It Might Get Loud? Obviously, the Scion FR-S is Jack White: deliberately stripped-down and retro, perhaps too self-consciously context-sensitive, adored without reservation by a bunch of people who have never signed a mortgage. The Genesis 2.0t R-Spec is the Edge: a lot of sharp edges and technical brilliance intended to cover up a fundamental deficit of talent.

The Miata? Well…

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“That is how I drive. Flat Out.” So says the infamous, Miata-blocking Koenigsegg/GT2 driver in the trackday community’s Most Favorite Video Ever. As a journeyman instructor and track rat, I encounter fellows like this all the time — but just as often, I see reasonably talented drivers in small-caliber hardware who take a perverse pleasure in holding up equally talented students in Corvettes and the like. When I discuss their behavior with them, they will always say, with a sort of wounded, defensive pride,

“It’s more fun to drive a slow car fast, than it is to drive a fast car slowly.” My response is always the same:

“Yes, but it’s the most fun to drive a fast car quickly, so next time, I need you to point us by before the Climbing Esses.”

The Genesis 2.0t R-Spec has the most power, the lowest lap times, and the most ridiculous name in our little group. It’s the fast car of the group, and it’s fun to drive fast, too. Why’d it finish second?

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“This car,” Derek Kreindler told me as we grabbed third gear down Toronto Motorsports Park’s front straight, “is like a GT-R for a guy who lives in his mother’s basement.” He had a point. Some American subcultures practice what I think of as immobile ambition — think of all those McMansions with no furniture and a double-income couple anxiously hoping someone will stop by and be impressed by the bridal staircase and crown moldings. Other subcultures are all about getting out in the street and showing off your clothes, your ride, or your woman. (Read More…)