She has two wants: Heated seat, and Manual transmission.
She would like comfy seats, and a good stereo.

My needs for her are AWD.

We live in the middle of rural area. She will be using it to travel 90 miles each way 3-4 times a month. Other than that a nice 20 mile commute. We are on back country roads. Her currant daily is a track tuned 1987 e-30 325 IS. It is an old Pro 3 Car from Seattle. 4:10 LSD, z3m 5 speed, Good stereo. It is just two easy to swap ends in this rainy leaf covered back country roads. Plus it has 400k on it.

So, here is what i came up with after looking at a few cars. BMW, Audi, Subbie, And Ford.

https://www.ford.com/performance/focus-rs/

She went and looked at one tonight in blue. She loved the seats and steering wheel. So far it looks like a good fit.

She hates car shopping. So i get her wish list and do the basic run down.

Mazda has a fair amount of stick-shifts available, they review pretty well too.

All wheel Drive?

Subaru STI. My wife is 67 and drives a 2016. Manual 6 speed. 305 hp, with the best all wheel drive Subaru offers. Handles like a dream.

Only real negative is it comes with summer tires. We have a second set of wheels with winter tires.

And a plus is it can be ordered without the rear wing, which is what my wife's has. It doesn't stand out for the police to focus on.

quote:

Originally posted by mas4363:
Subaru STI. My wife is 67 and drives a 2016. Manual 6 speed. 305 hp, with the best all wheel drive Subaru offers. Handles like a dream.

Only real negative is it comes with summer tires. We have a second set of wheels with winter tires.

And a plus is it can be ordered without the rear wing, which is what my wife's has. It doesn't stand out for the police to focus on.

We drove one in 2014 sti, and one in 2016. It was a unequivocal no. She did not like the car one bit. From the seats, to the control ergonomics, to the rattles as she drove. Which lead me back to audi and bmw. (previous car was A4)

Being that the RS is German made it feels like a Audi/BMW. She is now arm wrestling the dealer for a cheaper price.

We have a Z plan pin, how ever SVT cars are not eligible for the pin. The dealer can opt to match the pin if they want though. This car has been there a month or more. We will see if they suck it up an give us close to Z plan. (dealer cost minus dealer kickback)

My son bought a Focus ST when he came back from his first deployment.
It was triple black and a very good handling car for a front wheel drive.
The Recarro seats were some of the most comfortable sports car seats I have ever sat in (and I have a Porsche!).

The RS takes that to a whole new level.

What would that price be on this rig?

I am hoping around 40. That would put it right at about the z plan pricing.

By all accounts the RS is supposed to be a fantastic car and a huge bang for the buck. You might also want to consider the VW Golf R. Not as much hp, but might be more comfortable for those long trips. And has an optional DSG transmission which is fun in it's own way.

Focus RS is a badass car. I'm assuming based off her "must have's", the focus RS is for you haha. I fully support it. I've been toying with getting one, I can't get over the price though, for a focus.

quote:

Originally posted by cmr076:
Focus RS is a badass car. I'm assuming based off her "must have's", the focus RS is for you haha. I fully support it. I've been toying with getting one, I can't get over the price though, for a focus.

Not as much as you would think, Like i said her car is the track car. I have my truck.

I had a Focus in Germany for around 10 days. Did very well on the Autobahns. I was surprised at how solid and stable it was at high speeds.

Consider the upcoming Honda Civic Type R, would make a nice track car; just FWD not AWD.

Much like guns cars should be chosen by their end user.

The RS is a bad ass hot hatch but with that comes a fair bit of harshness, discomfort to achieve this. Make sure you/your wife are ok with this.

All high performance cars have as many "quirks" as selling points. Keep that in mind.

Yep get that RS. Ralley car hatch. I had the an 09 STi hatch. Love the hatch flexibility.

quote:

The RS is a bad ass hot hatch but with that comes a fair bit of harshness, discomfort to achieve this. Make sure you/your wife are ok with this.

Did you read what she drives now? The RS will ride like a Cadillac.

When you say back roads, do you mean unpacked dirt and gravel with lots of potholes and washboards?

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
When you say back roads, do you mean unpacked dirt and gravel with lots of potholes and washboards?

Rural virginia. Paved, curvy, hilly. We do live 6 tenths of a mile down a dirt road, and a 1/2 mile dirt drive way. But i maintain Them with our second turbo, ie the Kubota l6060

My nephew just bought a white Focus RS two weeks ago, it came in right at $40k msrp with the RS2 package and he was happy to get $400 off and floor mats thrown in.
While I appreciate performance, and I'm looking forward to a ride in it next time he's in, I wouldn't want it for real world use on our patched up, pot holed roads. Hell with it's 40 or 35 series tires I couldn't afford replacing broken wheels!

But VA roads are in nice condition and it sounds just like what you want for a track car from the factory, and compared to the Subaru or VW, Ford's RS seems like the hot ticket.

" well these are Special Vehicle Team cars, there is no z plan on them. They all sell for above msrp. blah blah blah."

the above seems to be the first line in their response. Okay jack wads. Z plan is dealer invoice minus their kickback. Roughly translated 8.25 percent give or take. There are currently 75 Focus rs's in this 100 mile radius of my house. My wife likes the blue ones, and could live with the white ones. There are 14 blue ones, 8 white ones. they are all specc'ed out pretty much the same. RS2 package, Cupp two tires. So, first dealer really close to that z plan pricing gets my business.