UPDATE - The modern equivalent of the CRX-Si

General Discussion
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I am intrigued with the Focus ST.
On paper it looks to be quick, it’s not an unattractive looking car and the gas mileage is potentially good. They are kind of vague about that so far but tout their “eco boost” technology.

I called my local Ford dealer yesterday and was told they had one in shipment. “It’s on the truck now” the guy said. So maybe I will get to test drive It next week.
Ford has been selling peppy little, gas efficient cars in Europe for years so this offering holds some promise!

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There’s nothing particularly vague about their Ecoboost engines. Ecoboost is just Ford’s marketing term for their line of direct-injected, turbocharged engines. The four cylinders use a single turbo, and the V6 variant (F-150, Taurus SHO) has two turbos. My dad has a 2011 SHO, and it brings a lot to the table; AWD, 365 HP, a very, very, flat torque curve, a nice interior, and good mileage for a large car with AWD and a 365 HP. Dad gets about 22 MPG overall with thrift reaching upwards of 26 MPG on the highway.

The Focus ST has been around while in Europe, it’s been very well received over there.

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shadowfax - I am surprised by both your negativity and your desire to be publicly rude to someone you have never met. You have clearly been following this thread and it's predecessor so you know that I have recently driven both the CRX Si and the Veloster within minutes of one another. So I can offer a first hand comparison of the two for others. Plus you know that I have now found 2 cars that perform like the CRX Si in my garage currently does. Up until now you have actually offered some positive and insightful input to this discussion and given me some good leads towards cars to look into so I am concerned as to what's really behind that last post? Are you okay?

Doin’ fine, and I stand by what I said. I wasn’t being rude, just objective. You didn’t like the Veloster because it was too slow, but you wanted a car as close as possible to the CRX Si, which was very slightly slower to 60 than the Veloster is. So, either you’re falsely remembering how fast the CRX is (which, btw, is not at all uncommon for people to do, even if they’ve just driven a car 5 minutes ago) or what you really want is the modern equivalent of a “heavily modified” CRX with a hybrid drivetrain.

Your requirements aren’t even met by the original CRX. 30mpg city did not happen on the Si. If you drove very gently, you could get that in the HF, but that variant was slow as hell and sacrificed features almost to the point of obsession - it deleted the passenger mirror, for instance, to get a .29 rather than a .30 coefficient of drag. And it deleted one of the 3 steering wheel spokes to save weight. Even its seats were less substantial, and it deleted the tagboard cargo cover, all in the name of weight savings for greater fuel economy.

Plus, my CRX (Si) is as fast as it is because it’s light as hell, and it’s light as hell because it was made before cars had 20 airbags and standard 8 speaker + subwoofer stereos. The CRX was not built or known for speed, it was designed and known for tossability. That’s why it dominated on the autocross course, but didn’t do well at all in drag racing without throwing gobs of cash and engineering at it. Ed Bergenholz managed to get a 9 second CRX, but he required heavy corporate sponsorship and insane modifications that took the car far from street legal to do it.

I’m not trying to be negative - just suggesting that the car you want does not exist. Safety regulations and comfort features have guaranteed that a CRX will never be built again (at least not legally, and not in mass production). There are cars today which come close, but will involve some sacrifice of one or more aspects of what made the CRX great, and will certainly require sacrifice of the performance you think you got out of the CRX, but never did.

If you REALLY want a modern CRX, you need to find a near-mint-condition CRX (which is very difficult to do. I have one, and have been offered, frankly, obscene amounts of money for it by people who spot it when I’m driving it) and then do an engine swap with an OBD2 motor, and upgrade the radio. It’s doable, but it won’t be cheap.

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Good to know your okay shadowfax.
I see that there’s a communication problem here.
You are focused on speed which I have no real interest in. I am looking for “quick”! Specifically, cars that reach their peak acceleration very low in their powerband. Cars that can get to 25mph in a heart beat and 45mph very shortly after.

0 - 60mph comparisons really don’t do me any good as I am looking for a “city” daily driver. 98% of the roads I travel have speeds below 50mph, 70% of those are even below 45mph.

The Veloster, which you describe as being to slow, is actually faster then the CRX but if you were to plot it’s rate of acceleration I believe you’d find the CRX reached it’s peak acceleration much sooner then the Veloster. Of course, you’d also see that the Veloster has a higher peak acceleration rate … but on my test drive I found that by the time it really started to sing I had to lift off the gas because I was at the 40mph speed limit.

I honestly don’t know if this is a function of the cars power plant or simply the gearing they have given it but that difference in low end acceleration is what makes the drive fun for me.

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Again, and not trying to call you out, you’re remembering wrong. The CRX didn’t start developing meaningful acceleration until you crossed around 4500 rpm. A lot of people at the time thought Japanimports were ridiculous because they were low torque, high RPM power peak cars. If you wanted more low-end grunt, you needed to swap with an Integra or preferably a Prelude motor.

If you put a Veloster and a CRX together in a drag race, they’d be pretty even, though the CRX would have the edge in the 1/4 mile time by about 0.6 seconds (but, as you said, that’s fairly meaningless since we don’t generally do 85mph from a stoplight).

If you’re looking for peak acceleration low in the power band, you’re looking for a car with a lot of torque - something with more than a 1.6 liter engine like the CRX came with.

What I’d recommend is that you get into a stock CRX Si and drive it around. I think you’ll see that what you’re really looking for is a car that has similar performance to a modified CRX.

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Well, I finally went and drove a Mini S. Actually, I drove a Mini then drove a Mini S.
Wow.
The S is pretty spot on with the low end acceleration I am looking for. The standard Cooper was “OK”. It had the CRX handling and was fairly peppy. I got out of that car and thought "Well, I guess I could live with this."
Then I got in the “S” model and from the first standing start I knew I was in the right car!

Sadly, the fuel mileage is a slight step backwards. Looks like it will be around 25mpg in the city (I get 32mpg now) but unless I am willing to settle for the looks of the Fiat500, I haven’t found a better answer.

I do want to give the new Toyota/Subaru car a drive though. I fear it is still in “beta” based on an ECU recall it has already had but I like the looks and it’s lineage is promising.

BTW - I gave up trying to get a test drive of that Ford Focus ST. The dealer didn’t seem very interested in selling me one and the gas mileage wasn’t very impressive any way.

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the ST is the performance version of the Focus. Their reasoning is that it’ll sell itself and don’t want to bother giving out test drives to those who might just be looking for a joy ride.

I tried getting a test drive of the SRT8 Charger a few years ago and the closest I got to that was them unlocking the door so I could sit in it on their lot. They didn’t want to rack up the miles on a $40k vehicle, and I didn’t want to drop that kinda money on something I didn’t know how it drove.