Comparison Tests
"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." That was Al Tennyson's famous take on this season of fresh breezes and tender green sprouts.
Of course, he lived back in the days when savvy young men spun verses instead of 17-inch Goodyears; they surely had to wipe horse exhaust off their boots before entering the parlor, too.
A lot has changed since Al's century (the nineteenth). Now we have cars, and any young man in this season of rising sap who's not thinking about upgrading his trolley has no soul. That's our take on the times, and we're the ones choosing the words for this journal.
After a winter of slip-sliding in the slush, the staff of this rust-belt car magazine is ready for a little sport. Actually, we're ready for a lot of sport, but in deference to Tennyson's young-man focus, let's keep the price friendly.
How about setting the dollar target in the low-$20,000 range? Can we show you something in a sports coupe, emphasis on driving fun?
Let's narrow the range even further to cars light on their feet because they're light on the scale. But instead of limiting the pounds, let's just say front-drivers only. We'll return to Mustangs and Camaros another month.
Everyone looking for a deal these days looks to Hyundai and its low, low prices. All-new for 2003 is the Tiburon, a slinky coupe that's been whetting appetites since the world's first glimpse on the show stand at Frankfurt last year. Fully loaded with a 181-hp V-6 and a six-speed manual, the Tiburon GT barely tops $20,000 when the destination charge has been added in.
From Honda, the obvious choice is the sporting version of the Acura RSX, the Type-S. Standard equipment with that model is a high-revving all-aluminum two-liter four churning out 200 horsepower. A six-speed is standard, of course.
Also packing a six-speed is the eye-catching Toyota Celica, provided you order the GT-S model. Toyota really cranked the fun into this seventh-generation Celica. If there's a more athletic chassis in this class, we'd love to find it. In past tests, the GT-S always impressed us with its quick reflexes and tenacious grip.
Another class veteran is the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Gone, though, are the turbocharged rat racers. New for 2003 is a GTS model with 10 more horses from its naturally aspirated 3.0-liter V-6, a shorter final drive, and a few mild styling tweaks. Hey, it's spring! The glacier has pulled back enough to allow serious traction. Time for g enjoyment.
One more possibility. VW just introduced the "sportiest New Beetle yet." Turbocharged to 180 horsepower, packing a six-speed gearbox, and rolling on 17-inch alloys, the Turbo S may give us reason, finally, to regard the New Beetle as something more than a smirk on wheels. Let's give it a chance.
The Mercury Cougar, especially the promised SVT version, would be a welcome entry into this sports-coupe class, except that Ford recently unpromised the SVT and gave notice that it will terminate the whole Cougar line. Sorry-no lame ducks on this adventure.
As you know, good intentions don't always bring good results. We intended a fairly tight price range, within a spread of $3000 starting at $20,000. But like customers everywhere, we can't always find the exact car we want in time for deadlines. We couldn't find a Hyundai with a sunroof to make a feature match with all the others. So the Tiburon comes in low at $19,344. At the top end, Mitsubishi made a big jump to a $24,752 base for its '03 model, so our budget got busted. Debtors' prison again!
Anyway, we have possession of the keys to five new sports coupes-four sculptured wedges and a Beetle bubble. As Tennyson would have said had he known what's sprouting this spring, "Let's drive."
