Quote:
Originally Posted by suss6052
2012 Year to date sales for the Ford Focus: 221,980, although that does not break down the 2013 component of those sales, nor the mix with the ST/ Electric, etc, its a baseline figure.
Thats a large theoretical market, although I'm sure the actual target market is a bit smaller, is it as small as a fraction of the STs sold? Probably not, but we won't know until some one starts taking a pulse in the general public about it.
I'd like to see the shifting tightened up a touch especially in manual mode, If I hit the switch, as long as the car has enough engine speed to go into the next gear I'd like it to shift as soon as I hit the + switch and not wait 2-3 seconds to think about it first. Might like a bit more performance, but not at the expense of part throttle drivability.
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The beauty of this car being so similar to the MS3 is a lot of knowledge can be gleamed from that market. The MS3 is an enthusiast car. Once again, if you take a few seconds to page through different MS3 forums, there are a large number of people who are seriously modding the car. Not just adding 'drop-in filters' or 'engine mounts'. These hot hatches have proven time and time again they are successful platform to build parts for.
I can't seem to find much information on Ford projected ST sales, but it seems to be selling pretty well so far. There isn't a doubt in my mind that a very large portion of those owners will be heading to a forum to start learning about modding that vehicle.
If you've spent any time on here, you'll notice there is a select crowd of people who will seriously pony up the cash to buy mods, then a larger portion of people who just talk about it but more than likely wouldn't take the plunge.
Reading through threads in the MK3 sections, you see most people are either complaining about their transmission, trying to figure out the best octane fuel for MPG or basically just talking about modifications that do nothing for performance. So even with in the population of the MK3 owners on this forum, I don't see that many people who would truly go to those levels.
Since the ST comes factory turbo charged, they will benefit greatly from a tune straight out of the box. That's where this business model doesn't make much sense for the N/A market. The tuning gains on a N/A engine are going to be minimal, and I for one can't justify spending $500 to tune for such minimal gains. Maybe if I intended to turbo this car, but that's not likely.