Affordable Classics

As the world nervously prepared for the click over to the year 2000, Audi was staging a comeback. A rough patch in the 1980s after the “60 Minutes” unintended-acceleration exposé had seen it nearly pack up in the U.S. and head back to Ingolstadt. The early 1990s saw a complete revamp of Audi’s lineup but…

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 valid firsts for car enthusiasts.…

The ZR-1 debuted after the C4 Corvette had already been on the market for six model years. Chevrolet’s new “King of the Hill” took its name from the race-spec 1970–72 Corvette ZR1 (a rarity, with only 53 built). It was both a nod to the past and an attempt to position the Corvette for the…

When the Volvo C30 arrived in America for the 2008 model year, it had been 36 years since production of the carmaker’s P1800 coupe ended. The new generation of sport coupe reflected the reality of its era, with an important nod to the past. The result was a 2-door hot hatch that never really caught…

When the Volvo C30 arrived in America for the 2008 model year, it had been 36 years since production of the carmaker’s P1800 coupe ended. The new generation of sport coupe reflected the reality of its era, with an important nod to the past. The result was a 2-door hot hatch that never really caught…

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. The 2000–05 MR2 Spyder was…

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 coming of age for a…

If you’ve ever discussed cars with a Lotus owner, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “What you have to understand is…” That’s just the nature of a Lotus. There are always going to be the parts that fail, the welds that crack, and sometimes the door handles that come off in your hand. (Honestly. It happened…

Though it may be hard to believe, Porsche’s first-generation 986-series Boxster is now 25 years old. While the Boxster was considered by many to be the Porsche you bought if you couldn’t afford a 911, in truth it was among the sharpest, purest sports cars the brand has ever built. From rags to riches By…

Mention Subaru to most people and they’ll think of an Outback station wagon-cum-crossover. Tighten it up to Subaru sports cars and they will usually think of the WRX and WRX STI hot rods, or the strangely sci-fi SVX of the 1990s. But there was a brief period at the turn of the millennium where the…