03-17-2014, 04:26 PM
Good idea, I think keeping a vehicle's ratings viable by investing in it should definitely be an option and this is something that's being done in the real world all the time (as in facelifts). Though to be fair, this issue could also be addressed by reducing development costs for new model years and trims, depending on the amount of changes made to the vehicle (I suggested this somewhere a while back). In the end, it IMO comes down to which version would better represent a "facelift". Merely pumping R&D into it should not affect stuff like power output and the like (that would seem odd, wouldn't it?), yet the vast majority of facelifts today feature some form of performance improvement (though these are mostly modest gains, the facelift version of my car gets 345hp up from 325hp - not a noticeable difference anyway).