Scion FR-S Won't Get Stripped Down "Tuner Special"
Published: February 13th, 2012
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North America won’t get a “tuner special” Scion FR-S like the Japanese Toyota 86 will. Such a policy apparently contradicts Scion’s policy of offering one trim level, and the American FR-S will apparently come pretty well equipped. But that doesn’t mean we won’t see it later.
Tetsuya Tada, the car’s chief engineer, told Automotive News that such a vehicle could arrive at a later date. That version, known as the “RC”, gets unpainted black bumpers front and read, 16″ steel wheels, no air conditioning and no stereo system. The RC sells for about $26,000 in Japan, while an equivalent to our FR-S would run $36,000. Car prices being what they are in Japan, we can expect an FR-S to retail closer to the RC’s price point.
More by Derek Kreindler
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I kind of hope that people are right about it flopping shortly after release. I'll buy one when they are no longer flavor of the instant and dealers are trying to move them off the lot before the technology laden 325 hp 2nd generation version shows up.
When we wrote two weeks ago that the stripper version will only be available in Japan,and that the Scion FR-S will come in monograde as usual, "comparable to our GT trim,” as Tada had said, we also warned not to convert yen into dollars to arrive at a U.S. pricing. If it would work that way, Toyota would not have problems with the yen. It doesn't work that way.
This after reading Jack's excellant article on FWD vs RWD and I'm keeping my GTI!
Will subie have a tuner special?