So.. picked up another ride. This time for the girlfriend. Thismakes six vehicles for me now so I think I may have a problem.. but she had a bit of race car envy and some very specific needs. So off we went~
She didn't want to lose her creature comforts so the car had to have all of the same features we had in the daily. That means leather, auto climate control, touch screen, voice commands, nav etc. Vehicle had to have enough room for the kid and the occasional dog, plus be able to haul all her crap around.
She wanted to go 'fast' (relatively for her), wanted the vehicle to look good, and also be inexpensive, wanting to be around 15k total price. All this led us to the hot hatch segment. Lots of cars like the Focus RS, WRX, Audis, and Civic hatches where too expensive, She didn't like the look of the GTI or Golf R etc. Some of the older style hot hatches like Mazdaspeed 3 and things like the Juke R didn't have the right set of options.
We finally decided on a model and I went to work. Took me a couple of days but I found a great deal on a clean and tastefully modified car..
BEHOLD~
Im super impressed with this car. In fact, compared to our regular titanium Focus its such a huge upgrade. The car does have full Roush intake and exhaust, BOV, tune, suspension, intake and tb spacers, catless downpipe, custom tune, and lots of little things like bushings etc. its not overly fast, (my butt dyno says its a mid/high 13 car, and similar cars put down in the range of 270whp/335tq) but its quicker than most vehicles on the road. It sounds great from the exhaust and the turbo/bov sound, and most of all, its a ****in blast to drive. I have driven them before through business but never really drove it like I owned it and man, I didn't think I could get so much driving enjoyment out of a FWD vehicle.
I'm actually thinking about selling my little Honda and my Focus titanium and buying ANOTHER Focus ST for me to daily drive. Is that wierd? Should we have matching dailys?