Car Throttle

Most car enthusiasts dream of one day owning an exotic, turbocharged mid-engined 2-seat sports car. Few of them ever reach this goal; have you seen how expensive Lotus Esprit V8's are these days?  Or Jaguar XJ220's?  Heck, even a used Noble M12 is far beyond the means of the average automotive enthusiast.  I've always said there was a direct correlation between how expensive a car is, and how far back in the chassis the engine is mounted.  A Honda Civic is cheap; the engine is in the front.  A Lotus Elise is quite pricey; the engine's in the middle.  A Porsche 911's ungodly expensive; the engine's in the back.  It all makes sense. But if you've been fiending for some mid-engined lift-throttle oversteer antics and don't have

Are you really itching to gain entry into the Porsche Club of America, but don't have $100k laying around for a 911? More importantly, do you not succumb to the notion that the only real Porsches have engines with no coolant mounted in the wrong place?  Then you might be interested in the "bastard children" of the Porsche range, namely the 944 and the 968.  I'm excluding the 944's predecessor the 924 from this guide for a few reasons: they're not pretty, they're not much fun, and the only really good ones are so rare you'll never see them, ever. A little history, first.  The 944 was the replacement for the unloved 924, which started out life as a joint project between Volkswagen/Audi and Porsche, and was

1991-1999 BMW 8-Series Coupe "And when they say great white sharks... they mean the kind in big, black cars." This buyer's guide is for an altogether different type of coupe than the last one.  While the appeal of the NSX was the raw connection if offered between the driver and the road, the appeal of an 8-series BMW is the way it effortlessly munches highway miles, the powerful and unique engines under the hood, and it's mildly thuggish demeanor.  If you're looking for a big, stately coupe that will get noticed but you don't have to mortgage the house for, the 8-series might be worth a look. Background The 8-series coupe (E31) debuted in 1991 as the replacement for the highly-acclaimed 6-series (E24) coupes from the 70's and 80's. 

1990+ Honda(EU)/Acura(US) NSX The Ferrari, as Soichiro Would've Done It. It's a tired automotive cliche at this point, but the NSX was one of those rare automobiles that turned a segment of the market on it's head when it arrived.  Sure, it's a narrow segment - race-bred sports cars for the street, with pricetags to match - but it was a storied segment with nearly impossible market penetration.  Buyers in this market were very loyal; they weren't going to replace their 328 GTS with a 911 Turbo.  They'd get a 348.  Then probably a 355. So for a Japanese manufacturer to offer a car which upset the supercar market, in 1990, was a big deal.  The NSX was first and foremost a flagship for Honda, who was just

So you want to get yourself a fast car. With that established, fast cars these days aren’t quite as cheap as they used to be. $18,000 used to buy you a brand new, V8 powered Mustang GT. £15,000 used to buy you the nastiest Cosworth Ford you could get your grubby little hands. Today, $18,000 will get you a Civic. Maybe. And £15,000 will get you a 1.8L Astra. Maybe.

Sure, wages have gone up. But the value of the dollar (or pound) haven’t. Speed costs money- well, how fast do you want to go? The secret is to realize that sometimes you don’t need a new car to get that “new car” feeling. Yesterday’s special models may still be special, but they’ve become today’s used