Not a daily driver but a fun one all the same
Weekend warrior doesn’t care much for luxuries — it’s all about lap times and driving
If you want a fun and responsive trackday car right out of the box, then the Scion FR-S is waiting for you. For anything else, well, it may not be ideal.
On the track, or a suitable back road, the 2+2 Scion is a hoot to drive. It’s not all that fast, and it takes some revving to keep on the boil, but it’s light and nimble and wags its tail like a delighted puppy out for a run in the fields.
This year, Scion’s added a few refinements to bring it closer in line with the Subaru BR-Z, with which it shares a platform, engine and transmission. Navigation is now available as a $1,190 option, for example, and a 6.1-inch display screen and backup camera are both standard.
The interior’s fabric is nicely stitched with contrasting thread, including the steering wheel and even the centre console. The suspension was retuned slightly last year to make the ride a little firmer and the corners a little flatter.
But there’s not much more. Luxuries such as heated seats and leather surfaces are not even options. In fact, there’s only one available trim level. The navigation system with its better sound system, fog lights and 18-inch wheels are options, as are lowering springs, sway bars and some high-performance parts.
That’s it. This car is about lap times and driving, not accessories and luxury, which is both its strength and its weakness.
When the opportunity presents itself, the rear-wheel-drive FR-S will drop down a couple of gears and become an extension of its driver on the road. It redlines at a very buzzy 7,500 rpm and wants you to use all the gears, all the time.
It’s not a Porsche, feeding back every ripple and pebble through a light touch on the wheel and a firm hug in the seat. But it’s not a Hyundai Genesis coupe either, which needs more heft from the driver to hustle it around a track.
The Scion’s 200 hp, 2.0-litre boxer-four engine feels a little rough at first, as does the six-speed transmission, until everything settles down and finds its rhythm. The tester was a stick-shift manual that’s nowhere near as slick as the bench-leading transmission on the Mazda MX-5, but it’s almost $1,200 cheaper than Scion’s six-speed, paddle-shifting automatic.
Price is important for this car. The manual comes in just below $30,000 after all the various sales charges are included, but before taxes get added to the total. This means the $27,490 FR-S is no longer a thousand dollars cheaper than its Subaru BRZ clone, which starts at $27,395 and includes navigation as standard.
The Scion outsells the Subaru in North America, and it’s the bestseller for Toyota’s youth brand. Sales have been slipping, however, because such committed track cars are very much a niche market.
So Scion added a little comfort to the FR-S to appeal to a wider audience, but it’s still loud and raucous. Its back end still swings out on corners with smack-happy predictability, and its centre of gravity is still low enough to keep all the fun in bringing it back into line.
Scion’s FR-S is not an everyday car. It’s not even a most-days car. It’s a weekend warrior that you just live with the rest of the time. All it wants to do is be fun to drive on a challenging piece of asphalt without costing too much money, and it succeeds at that admirably.
If you’re committed to it, you won’t really mind its single purpose, but most people will. Their loss. Freelance writer Mark Richardson is a regular contributor to Toronto Star Wheels. The vehicle he reviewed was provided by the manufacturer. To reach him, write to wheels@thestar.ca and put his name in the subject line.