These days, the new car market is saturated with affordable sports cars that double as almost-uncompromised daily drivers. For the most part, these are compact vehicles like the Subaru WRX/WRX STI, Volkswagen GTI/Golf R, Ford Focus ST/Focus RS, and the Honda Civic Si/Civic Type R. Unless you suffer from serious brand loyalty, you're probably going to have trouble picking between this tight pack of cars. Trust me: I recently found himself in this predicament. I cross-shopped the Focus RS, the WRX STI, and the Chevrolet Camaro SS 1LE while trying to settle on my new daily, and wound up leasing the Subaru. Though my decision was primarily based on pricing and affordability, [And the fact that Aaron is an unabashed Subaru fanboy. —Ed.] after spending some time with a Focus RS lent to The Drive by Ford, I learned that the Subaru makes for a better everyday car.

Aaron Brown

The WRX STI, which starts at $36,095, is a 305-horsepower four-door sedan that's been on the market in its current generation since 2014. Though its looks have changed, its performance and feel remain similar to when Subaru first brought the model to America in 2004—for better or for worse. The Focus RS, on the other hand, is much fresher; Ford began selling the car, which carries a starting MSRP of $36,120, in America just last year. For that price, you get a 350-hp five-door hatchback with a fancy rear differential, and, well, a hatch—something you can't currently get with the STI.

Aaron Brown

To test the Focus RS, I put around 700 miles on it by daily driving it on the streets of New York City and on the backroads of New York's Catskills region. Dirt roads, pothole-packed city streets, and curvy back roads helped me figure out what it's actually like to live with the RS. As for the STI, it's my personal car—which means I've put nearly 2,000 miles on it so far on those very same roads. Both cars are aggressive, but the Focus RS is a hair over the top. As someone who's been known to put up with back-cracking suspensions and aggressive clutches, I didn't think the RS would have anything on me. "It's just another factory hot hatch," I thought going into my time with the car. I was wrong. With their suspensions left in their respective non-sport mode, the RS and the STI feel about equal when it comes to ride stiffness. Neither are totally city-friendly or overly pleasant, but when you get the cars on back roads, they both corner flat and are able to roll over road imperfections without rearranging spines.

Aaron Brown

But it's not the suspension that gets me on the RS—it's the clutch. For traffic-free trips, the third pedal on the RS is fine. It's not much heavier than the clutch pedal on my STI, so if you're shifting quickly, it's not a big deal. But when navigating traffic with the RS, I found myself wishing I had some sort of powered robotic extension for my knee and leg. About halfway through the clutch pedal's travel, it seems as though there's a return spring that makes it want to shoot up through the bottom of your foot. Maybe this was something that was even more noticeable or worse on our test car that already had more than 10,500 hard, journalist-driven miles clocked in...but in traffic, it was terrible. Just thinking about it makes my left knee hurt. The RS also seemed to have some sort of auto-rev feature to prevent stalls when rolling off the clutch. It's not abnormal for a manual car to bounce the revs up a bit when releasing the clutch, but it almost seemed like the RS had some sort of electronic anti-stall function. Without touching the gas pedal, I saw the car's revs repeatedly jump to around 1500 rpm while rolling off the clutch without applying gas. While this could be helpful for novice manual drivers, I found it to be incredibly annoying while parallel parking. Granted, the WRX STI's clutch isn't the easiest to familiarize yourself with, but you won't find the car shooting up revs to prevent stalls at traffic lights. The Focus RS doesn't feel as roomy as I'd hope a hatchback would. This generation of STI might not be available as a hatchback, but that doesn't mean it's lacking in interior comfort and space. In fact, the STI has the RS beat when it comes to front legroom and headroom—and from my real-world passenger tests, it has the preferred backseat of the two.

Aaron Brown