Discovering the Fountain of Youth in the Ford Lynx RS

It’s no secret — the older you get, the more your body longs for comfort. You can’t deny, for example, that while strutting around in a souped-up 5-speed 1600 was an exhilarating experience back in college, the demands of a middle-aged lifestyle has you longing for the simpler and more supple ride provided by a mid-sized, automatic transmission sedan — European or otherwise. Assuming you have the moolah, it just doesn’t make much sense to subject yourself to the self-imposed torture of attacking the legendary traffic of Metro Manila in a manual transmission when you can already afford to put your car in every gear imaginable by simply shifting into "D" and letting its "variable valve intelligent timing transmission from the mind of an engineer whose intellect is at par with that of Einstein" do the thinking — and more importantly shifting — for you.

Petty street racing is, after all, more suited for the adventurous youth of today. It‘s the natural scheme of things, written in the very DNA of about 90 percent of men today — especially those who spend lots of time on the road. Once you hit the ripe age of 30, the need for speed takes a backseat to the desire to experience luxury and comfort — hence the rise in the popularity of the automatic transmission.

This writer has been sharing that mindset with a growing majority for quite some time now. So when our friends from Ford Group Philippines gave us a call to inform us that the Ford Lynx RS was available for a test drive, we were understandably less than thrilled. Here, we thought, was one of those test-drives we’d forget as soon as we handed over the keys back to the Ford representative who’d be lending us the unit. Oh don’t get us wrong, the Ford Lynx RS is an adolescent’s dream car come true. Blessed with an engine displacement that would be more suited for a relatively larger M-class (2.0L), it could fly if only it had wings. Heck, it even has electronic fuel injection, double overhead cams, 16 valves and a variable air intake system to help it maximize its already powerful-on-paper engine. Problem is, to enjoy all this, you’d have to get used to maximizing its class-leading 192 Nm of torque by shifting yourself. Yep, the Ford Lynx RS is available only in a manual transmission iteration.

So much for enjoyment on a middle-aged level, we thought. To give you an idea of where this writer is coming from, try to picture this, this writer drives a mid-sized Japanese 3.0L V6 that can kick a BMW 320’s @$$ from here to God-knows-where — and we can do all this while the shift knob is on "D". So...ruggedly handsome and muscular but small — that was our first impression of the deep red all-options RS that stared us in the face. Unimpressed and haughty, this writer took the wheel of the RS and left our Japanese momma to rest for the weekend at the Ford dealership. Good thing the Ford dealership where we picked up the unit from was in Alabang — at least we’d get to see what all the fuss is about once we hit the South Super Highway.

Tell you what, it didn’t take that long for this writer to want to leave our Japanese momma at the dealership for, oh maybe, the next year or so. The Ford Lynx RS’s deep, humming baritone made us instantly feel like we were barely in our 20s again. This writer could so easily imagine himself navigating University Avenue in UP Diliman with nonchalance — stereo blasting and all. Juan Ponce de Leon, if he were alive today, would’ve probably likened the darn car to the legendary fountain of youth. Quite simply, the Ford Lynx RS brought back the desire to indulge in pocket rocket posturing in this writer — bum knee and bad back notwithstanding.

Here’s what the Ford Lynx RS is capable of. With its torque-y engine giving out a respectable 142 ps at 6000 rpm, it can accelerate like nothing. Overtaking slow-@$$ road distractions "posing" as moving vehicles won’t even necessitate down-shifting! But that’s not all, with stabilizer bars and stiffer springs, it’ll attack sensitive corners with such indifference, you’d think you were driving a car meant strictly for the racetracks. Behind the wheel of an RS, it’s easy to get lost in the thrill of the moment. With a buzzing engine that’s muscular yet unobtrusive, you can hear and feel its power lurking, waiting to be unleashed any time. Yeah! Flick in a Prodigy CD and you’re off to bad-@$$ land!

Oh, did we say CD? Worth mentioning is the RS’s standard in-dash 6-disc changer whose accompanying speakers do justice to drowning out the engine’s sound if the need arises. Plus, it’s got a moonroof, a front airdam with foglamps, side skirts, six-spoke 15-inch rims and fat, low profile tires. Earning them pogi-points ought to be easy if you have the not-so-intimidating (especially for a car with this much juice) amount of P808,000 to spare. If one were to compare it to recent and similar releases in the country, it would be like putting together in one car the stunning beauty of the MazdaSpeed with the kick-butt engine of the Civic SiR. Damn, the Ford Lynx RS is impressive!

True, the Ford Lynx RS might be a car that targets a very specific niche but let’s face it, it does so quite impressively. It can make believers out of skeptics, that’s for sure. Our recommendation? Schedule a test drive now if you wanna rediscover your youthful ways. And if you have the dough, part with it immediately after your test drive! The Ford Lynx RS is a car that can bring out the kid in you simply because it’s a downright fun car to drive.