Long-Term Tester Update: The FiST Is So Good, It's Become The New Boss of the House

As I travel this great nation of ours on a weekly basis, I am often asked the same question by people I meet. Whether it’s a stranger in an adjoining seats on a planes, a fellow patron dining solo at a restaurant, or even a new colleague whom I haven’t met, they all ask me the same thing:

“So, where do you call home?”

When I reply that I reside squarely in the middle of the Bluegrass in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, I can tell immediately if my interrogator has ever been there simply by the way that he responds. If he has never visited our great state, he’ll likely crack some sort of joke about missing teeth or southern diphthongs. But, if he has, he’ll nearly always reply, “Oh, it’s so gorgeous there. You must love it.”

To which I reply: “Yes. Yes, I do.”

However, even relatively frequent visitors to my home state — or even perhaps you, the frequent visitor to TTAC — are often unaware of the severity of the winters in Kentucky. I live only eighty miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio. We get nearly exactly the same weather as our bordering neighbors to the north, only instead of the the snow that Buckeyes tend to get, we regularly get sheets of ice on our roads. As you can imagine, this can make driving a 444 horsepower, rear-wheel-drive pony car a bit treacherous.

And, as such, as I pulled out my iPad to make my rather oppressive payment on my Boss 302 Mustang, I wondered to myself: How often do I actually drive this thing? Do I drive it enough to keep paying such a large sum to own it? And how much will I really be driving it over the next four wintry months?

The answers to my questions led me to an ultimate answer that I didn’t expect, and I certainly didn’t like.

When I figured out the number of actual miles I’ve put on the Boss over the 42 months since I purchased it, I realized that I actually drive it around eight hundred miles a month. That hasn’t always been the case. In fact, at this same time last year, I was driving it considerably more — nearly eleven hundred miles a month. Then, I realized a truth that was self-evident once I chose to look at it: I have only driven the 302 three thousand miles this calendar year. And the reason was the rollerskate-looking thing that sits happily in the driveway, subjected to all of the elements while the Boss sits coolly in the garage.

Yep, you guessed it. Nearly nine thousand miles — or, in other words, all the workload that the Boss used to handle — have rolled their way around the odometer of my Fiesta ST in the nine months since I leased it. And, when I think about it, the only time I haven’t driven the Fiesta is when I am driving the Mustang for a specific reason; going to the track, driving it to a special event, etc. I never take it to the airport. I never drive it on trips. I never take it on trips to the store, or even to pick up the kids from school anymore. It’s been relegated to garage queen duty.

Which would be fine if I lovingly wiped it with a diaper every day, or if I admired it longingly as I leaned against the entryway to my door. But I don’t. I have too much seat time behind the wheel of the GT350 to really continue to love my Boss the way I used to. It’s not a classic car. It’s not a new car. It’s just … used. And that doesn’t do it for me anymore.

So, I sat down with Mrs. Bark, and explained that the 302 would be heading to a new home as soon as possible. While she’s no car lover, she knows how much I used to love it, and she could tell that I had lost my zest for the five-point-oh. She wasn’t the tough sell.

Neither was my daughter, Regan.

“Can we get another Mustang someday?” Maybe. “Okay.”

No, that was going to be my son, Kevin. When I tried to tell him that I wanted to sell the car, he wouldn’t even let me finish my sentence .

“No, we are not selling the Mustang.” He would not be dissuaded. He began to cry immediately. He didn’t stop for an hour. Once he stopped, he refused to talk to me for quite some time. He then woke up crying in the middle of the night.

It’s the only car he’s ever known. As a seven year old, he only has vague memories of the Boss’ predecessor, my Pontiac G8 GT, which he calls “the white car.” He knows that all the kids at school love the Mustang. His principal asks him every day if his dad brought “the cool car.”

I nearly caved twice. In fact, I did cave once, only to be brought back to a place of common sense by Mrs. Bark.

“Remember that he cried when we turned in my CX-7 at the end of its lease? And that he cried when we traded in the Equinox on the Flex? ”

She also gave me a piece of great advice, as only a wife can. “You know, the FiST is pretty cool. You’ve just never let Kevin see that it’s cool.”

She was so right. The Fiesta ST is a pretty damn cool car. Not only do I enjoy driving it on the street more than the Boss, I even enjoy driving it more on the track. It’s the most well-settled street car I’ve ever driven. The Performance Blue color is beautiful. Sure, it’s an acquired taste visually, but at the very least it’s unique.

So I sat down with Kevin and explained all that to him. I told him that he’d likely be too big to sit in the back of the Mustang soon (he’s already cramped), and that, most importantly, when the Fiesta lease was over, he and I could do some car shopping together, and if wanted to, he could help me pick out our next ride. (I already have it picked out: a Focus RS in Stealth Gray. He doesn’t know that.) He liked that idea, although he thought it should be less like a year from now, and maybe more like “a few days from now.” We’ll work on that.

The end result? Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bark M. Boss 302 is officially for sale.

I’m not going to advertise it on Craigslist or Autotrader. I don’t want endless parades of tire kickers, or people who want to take it on sweet test drives. No, I will either sell to a friend (internet or real), or I’ll dump it on my local Ford dealer, who’s been salivating at the thought of acquiring it. So if you think you’d like to send me a check for a few dollars over the wholesale-ish price that they’re likely to offer me, hit me up on the Twitters ( @barkm302).

Damn. Do I have to change my Twitter handle? Hmm. Didn’t think of that.

You know what — no. I don’t.

The Boss was part of my life for three and half years; the longest timeframe that I’ve ever owned any car in my life. It was the first car I drove on track. It was the first car I ever owned that I would have called my “dream car.” Maybe, thirty years from now, I’ll regret that I sold it. But I’ll never regret owning it. It doesn’t define me, but it’s definitely part of me.

In the meantime, I can enjoy taking Kevin and Regan on spins to Tasty Time for ice cream after soccer in the FiST, and I can do it on 87 octane gasoline at 33 mpg. I can grab a set of snow tires and plow through the wintry mix. And even at less than half the cost of the Boss, it’s certainly more than half the car.

In fact, in many ways, it’s much, much more.