My FR-S & Finding Joy in the Journey: We (shouldn't have) overnighted parts... from Japan

Wow! It's been a long time since posting. The FR-S has been performing admirably. The handling is crisp and on the new commute to work MPG has been an impressive 32mpg. It's still got that raw feel of my 96 Miata, but the modern amenities have made summer driving much more tolerable... a roof and cold A/C! The car still rides choppy at times, is loud, has a whistling engine, likes to kick out the rear and can put ear to ear grins on whenever called upon! I can see a lot of these hitting the used car market from people who need more refinement, or who came from cars with smoother rides, sound insulation, and less quirks. You have to want this car to look past some of its personality, and if you want it, you'll love it. It's like the friend of yours you take to concerts because they always buy the drinks, but throughout the show they won't stop yelling 'Freebird'! Kind of like that.

The mod-bug has hit me in a bad way, and I've been trying to resist to big ticket items. The first purchase was to procure some new taillights that blend in better with the rear end than the altezza-style taillights that came stock. They just ruin the flow for my eyes, from every angle. There are several choices that came out on the market, but most are a variation of the altezza but with LED, or are smoked. I've never been a fan of smoked taillights, and they would have done nothing to help the taillights from being a visual distraction on a red car. And the smoked tails remind me of the Camaros and Mustangs and Neons at Orlando Speedworld. Yeah, so I chose red. There are very few choices in a pure red taillight for the FR-S, and I looked at countless pictures and weeded out all but one brand based on my personal taste... TOMS.

After finally deciding on TOMS taillights, I waited for them to reach the shores of America. And waited. And waited. When the FT86club forums began buzzing that the TOMS lights were available, I went and placed an order with one of the vendors advertising stock. All good, right? As it turns out, no. Shortly after I placed my order, the vendor RallysportDirect updated their website. Their taillights are not the USDM TOMS taillights, they are straight JDM. JDM yo... FTW. Not really. The JDM tails require re-pinning the vehicle factory taillight harnesses. Sorry, I'm not interested in dinking with the factory wiring, not when what was initially advertised on the forum and vendor site was a plug and play product. After refusing the delivery and getting stuck with shipping costs for a product I would have never ordered had the vendor known how to update descriptions on their website in a timely manner, my second order from an authentic TOMS US vendor arrived. These were in fact plug and play, from Guerilla Racing. Lesson learned.

Installation was easy. I won't get into that too much. But below are some comparative pictures and installed pictures. My personal preference has always loved the look of red taillights on red cars... ferraris, civics, mustangs, porsches, fusions, etc. I just like how they look... unobtrusive.

The box... well packed!