It’s nice to be first. Ask Jeff Bezos. Or Bill Gates. Or the Netflix guy. And, yes, even Mitsubishi. It didn’t nail it right out of the gate — that came later with the Lancer Evolution (see “Affordable Classic,” July 2021) — but the Eclipse GSX marked a lot of […]

If you want to out-Miata the Miata, there’s really only one option. You’ve got to pull out all the stops for mass reduction and centralization. You’ve got to go lighter and more focused. You’ve got to make a mid-engine sports car. So, some 23 years ago, that’s what Toyota did. […]

Think back to 1999. Four-cylinder sport compacts had overrun SEMA. Car magazines serving this market were 400 pages thick, with new ones being launched left and right. Every other Japanese econobox on the road was lowered and bedazzled with larger wheels and an aftermarket exhaust. No carmaker better understood this […]

Mazda’s FD3S third-generation RX-7 is hot in so many ways. First, it’s in demand. You can count on one hand the number of these cars that have sold for less than $30k on Bring a Trailer since 2020 — with the best reaching  $80k. So, as affordable classics go, the […]

The early 1990s is not a period fondly remembered by either auto-styling aficionados or performance enthusiasts. This was the era of the inglorious 250-horsepower Corvette, when a new Ferrari infamously got outrun by a stock GMC pickup, and Giorgetto Giugiaro was slumming with the likes of Subaru. From this time […]

Honda turned a generation of otherwise pragmatic buyers into driving fans when the Civic-based CRX hit showrooms in 1984. The 2-door, 2-seat hatchback was a smaller, livelier version of Honda’s compact commuter car while still maintaining a healthy dollop of practicality. Today, history most fondly remembers the second-generation CRX, which […]

It wasn’t terribly expensive. It didn’t sound exotic. And with the exception of its oversized rear wing, it was invisible to most. But Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evolution, born from World Rally Championship competition, was unquestionably a driver’s car. We’d even go so far as to call the “Evo” o ne of […]

It’s official: Volkswagen will stop sales of its iconic hatchback, the Golf, in the American market this year. The Golf debuted in the United States as the econobox Rabbit in 1975 and has served as the base model for the higher-performance GTI since 1982. That the GTI and its even […]

The Honda S2000 debuted in 1999, 10 years after Mazda’s Miata reinvigorated a sedentary roadster market in America. It offered more power than its topless German competitors (BMW Z3, Porsche Boxster, Mercedes-Benz SLK 320), along with a stiffer, more responsive chassis. It also undercut the competition with a $32,000 asking […]