The wife's car is a 2012 with a six speed manual. Still no torque before 2700 rpm. I don't know how the turbo and final drive compares to your Forester, but the premise that modern turbo'd cars don't lag just isn't true. They're better, but it's still there in a real way with some cars.

Which is why the newest scroll type superchargers are so impressive-looking at the ones used by Audi and Jaguar, they're getting good efficiency with all the low end sweetness we loved :-)

Almost no lag in a Forester XT? My wife drives a Legacy GT with the same engine, I KNOW you're being generous there :-)

The WRX also puts power (more power than the supercharged FRS here) to the ground through four wheels, not 2, and they are likely much wider and stickier tires.

Haha, never paid much attention to the FRS, did you? It was never set up as a drag racer-it's set up to be fun to drive. Your heavy, four door automatic diesel sedan is faster because it probably produces 200% more torque, likely more power, shifts faster than anyone can with a stick, and has more grip. The FRS is a…

This video would seem to contradict that, if BennyFur's numbers are correct.

A turbo is more efficient (though both will drop your mileage), but a supercharger isn't necessarily heavier-it all depends on the supercharger. This HKS system uses a centrifugal compressor, just like a turbo would-it's just belt driven instead. I cannot imagine there would be any weight difference; I'd expect this…

Not unless they shipped it to Florida on an overnight flight. It was in Calgary yesterday afternoon.

Yeah, just noticed that! Still cannot find more info though.

Way better photos from someone on Flickr, but no name for it yet-https://www.flickr.com/photos/davesev…

Eating fewer bees?

The other photos my wife Sheri took-you can't see the crazy handlebars in all their glory, but the headers are that cool.

Should have photoshopped him flat-towing a Suzuki :-)

Ah, that makes sense. They just wanted folks on the ground in case issues came up. They were clearing customs in Vancouver, which is why everything got confused.

That isn't 'real journalism' research. That's exhaustive engineering analyses. What do you think goes into life cycle analyses? Some back of the napkin calculations, a few quips from Clarkson about nickel mines in Canada, and you're done?

They didn't need customs in Santa Ana. There are export customs in Vancouver-passengers go through US customs in the Vancouver airport before they ever board the plane. All major airports in Canada do this. Then the planes that leave these airports can just land at domestic terminals in the States.

I don't think Jalopnik has the engineering resources to start doing comprehensive life cycle analyses on dozens of cars :-)

MPGe was created for just that reason. 101 MPGe is killer, but it is rated for less.

Commercial aero derivative gas turbines are excellent power plants. In an industrial setting they can go huge periods between overhauls (24000 hours for these I believe, so 3 years of continuous running), sitting in a small package, with very low vibration levels. Because they are relatively light and small, they can…

Those gas turbines are 40% efficient in simple cycle-if they're running flat out. The efficiency drops pretty quickly when you ramp them down.