What kind of comparisons do you want to see the car magazines do? Here is mine:

Requirements:
1. Fun to drive sports cars
2. Base price under $35,000
3. Under or Equal to 2.2 Liter of engine displacement, but N/A or F/I are okay

The candidates I have in mind are the followings:

Honda Civic Si
Mazda MX-5
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX
Volkswagen GTI
Honda S2000
Mazda RX-8
Acura RSX TYPE S

Are there any other possible candidates that I have missed? Anyways, what comparions do you want to read in a car mag? I am just curious.

 

Those cars are so disparate in price, bodystyle, performance, market, features, driveline, etc that it would not be possible to do any meaningful comparison of them. I mean how many car buyers are really cross-shopping a $32,000 Lancer Evolution sedan with a $21,000 Miata roadster?

If you want to compare that list of cars to each other, then I want to see a comparison of:

Apples
Oranges
NY Strip Steak
Maccaroni and Cheese
Hot dog
Lobster Bisque
Alpo dog food


Andrew

 

Real gains of various aftermarket parts. I've seen some of this in various mags but never enough multiple-vendor comparisons (exhausts, intakes, chips, ...).

 

COOL S2K= Hotdog

 

 

I really like the comparison tests but ended up letting my Car and Driver subscription lapse because most of the comparos were of no interest. I prefer comparos of

1. Roadsters
2. Sport Coupes
3. Sports cars
4. Sporty sedans

I don't care about the displacement just fun cars in the sub $40,000 category. If I can't afford em, I don't care to read that much about em. Full size quad cab pickup reviews, full size SUV reviews, $90,000+ luxury sedan comparos and endless supercar shootouts get old after a while. Lemme read about fun to drive stuff I might actually want to get my hands on.

I also like the comparisons of tuned cars for aftermarket turbo or sc kits that Car and Driver would do every few years.

Reading about a Mucielago v. Modena v. Carrera GT v. McLaren once is fine but every month got boring. Reading about driving a B2 bomber might be interesting once, but I am never gonna drive that either.


The POS winter beater race they do once in a while is pretty good too.

 

I understand your opinion, but not totally agree. In my case, "fun to drive" is the reason for this comparison, very pure and simple. At least to me, the cars I have listed all belong to this category. There is a very slim chance for car mag to actually do this kind of comparison, but that is what I WANT to see.

 

C&D used to do a semi-regular performance "Bang for the Buck" article along those lines. I thought it was interesting.

 

Why the 2.2L limit? Seems rather arbitrary. I think we should limit it to 2.1L instead. That leaves out the GTO, 325, STi, is the WRX 2.5L now, Legacy GT, Volvo S40, Solstice, Sentra SE-R, TSX, Mustang...

Lots of good cars.

In all seriousness I would limit the review to $X as tested (no letting an M3 in just because a BASE 325 slips in). Beyond that, lots of cars to choose from.

 

fun to drive is soo opinion based its not even funny.

say someone thinks the miata is fun to drive, because of the absolute tossability, or the evo mroe fun to drive because they enjoy the rally feel.

its way to subjective to make an article about.