Wow, did I have some serious fun this last week. I got to test drive some seriously fun cars. On Tuesday I decided to go see the Pontiac Solstice in person (quite a nice little runabout, would be phenomenal with a factory optional v8), and the only one they had on the lot was already sold so I got to look at it but no test drive. As consolation, the salesman gave me a test drive in a Saab 9-3 Aero (turbocharged v6 with 250 hp). Boy was that fun. He drove us to the top of a fun, curvy local mountain road and set a great example by flying up at 65 or so (it's a 45 zone). So I took it back down and really put that FWD to the test. Then I decided to test the Sentronic transmission (one of those semi-automatics with push buttons on the steering wheel), but was not impressed. It didn't seem to like the 1-2 upshift (some serious delay), though the 2-3 went better and the 3-4 was good (didn't test higher because I got it up to around 90 or so at that point and decided I shouldn't go much faster with the salesman in the car). I was surprised at just how fast it was. Then on Thursday I took my tC in for its 15000 mile service and decided to wander to the other dealerships in the Cathedral City Auto Mall. My next test drive was a 350Z (6 speed manual with 300 hp). I knew I was in for a good test drive when the salesman fishtailed the car leaving the lot. He stopped in the road just out of the parking lot and let me take over. Great transmission (though I still dislike the softness of modern clutch pedals, as opposed to say my 89 MR2). This car also flew and I was hitting 80 before I knew it. Took it down a little road with some good (and bumpy) curves that are meant to be taken at about 35 while going 65 and had no handling problems at all (even hitting the bumps didn't upset the car at 30 mph over the speed limit). Let me tell you, there is no feeling like lighting up some 265s with the salesman cheering you on. After finding my way out of that dealership (with a wonderful story if I do say so myself) I wandered over to the Dodge dealership (I would have hit the Mazda, Honda, and Acura dealerships, but they already know me and don't like to give me test drives any more). I decided that I wanted to see how the Charger with the 5.7L Hemi did (I still don't like that it has 4 doors), and really enjoyed it. Again, the car was flying before I knew it. I took it over the bridge that I outran the riced-out Miata on, and thought I was going 35 or 40 but a glance at the speedo told me it was actually going 65. I decided to slow it down a bit (the salesman didn't drive first, so I had no idea how he would feel about me seriously testing the performance), and took it down that same curvy road as the Z. It didn't feel as buttoned down (could be because the seats didn't make me comfortable enough on the corners to push it) but it did really well for the boat that it is. The last thing I drove was a used srt4. Lots of fun as well (you can really feel the effects of the turbo), but probably one of the worst transmissions I have ever felt. the clutch had a real feel to it (one point for them) but the stick itself was so sloppy (had serious trouble telling which gear was aiming it at, and I first learned to drive on a manual when I was ten and have had 2 of them out of my 4 cars since) and really didn't seem to want to go into any gear (I really had to shove to get it in gear). But it was a fun little sprinter and lit up the rubber really well. Out of all the cars however, the best combo IMHO of price/performance/features was the Saab. The glovebox was probably the biggest I have ever seen, and it accelerated as well as I could ever afford (tickets would come flowing in with any of those cars). All in all, quite a fun couple of days.

I want to test out a Type S =(

The RSX? I've done that a couple of times. The best way is to go once yourself and then go back with your girlfriend (or a female acquaintance if your girlfriend has issues with deceiving car salesmen) and then you can test drive it twice. But the RSX doesn't compare to any of those cars, they completely blow it away.

Well its different in every way imaginable. Type S has 215hp now so its not like it isnt fun.

Hi guys! I'm new and sorry for the bad english but I'm from Bulgaria. I see u've gotta nice rides there? I'm going to buy a Ford Cougar 2500cc V6 24V (170hp), so i wondered if u can tell me how much will be the hp if i buy a turbo pack + chip tuning (here in bg we call it chip-tuning i dunno how it is here..) ? sorry for the offtopic but i didn't knew where to post my ... post

Wouldnt be able to tell you. This might sound amazing, but we dont get a lot of the american cars that other countries get, even though they are made here. Its sad when domestic auto makers dont even give their full lineup to their own country.

Well, considering the fact that Ford doesn't even make all of the cars in its foreign lineup (like the Galaxy minivan they pay VW to make for them in Europe that I talked about last summer) it's not all that surprising.

Not saying the Type S wouldn't be fun, but after driving and comparing them, I have a little trouble finding my tC to be as fun as it used to be. I still love it though, just can't wait till my warranty is either up or I don't have to worry about the money saved by maintaining a warranty so that I can pump it up.

A little off topic but i was surprised how fast aftermarket support caught onto hte TC, large turbos were soon being made for it, and not too long afte the realease a company had a 500hp TC.

Sounds like you had a good time test driving some cars, a good way to kill time.

The fast response was because Toyota had the money and the motivation to get people on the bandwagon quickly. Look at them and NASCAR, they are entering it so soon after they got into the truck series and doing it in addition to F1. They opened a bank in Nevada. So what is it to them to toss some money out to aftermarket companies to help with research for products for a car they are hoping to win a market segment with? But, yeah, I love test driving cars for fun and entertainment, it's much less expensive than going out and buying all of the cars. I even got a letter today from the Nissan salesman who gave me the test drive.