Just recalled the thread where everybody agreed on how smurfy the car was. Well, my roommate bought one recently, and as of Monday broke through the 1000 mile mark where he deems it's ready to be dogged out. Funny part is though, you're not allowed to test drive it until you've pretty much finished all your paperwork on the car. You know what you're buying and they don't want any miles on the car. He took delivery of his with 3 on it.
First Impression: The front end looks like it should be on Anime robot. Y'all are right, it's not all that pretty in person. Inside the car, you don't really see the hood itself, just the back of the mailbox sized scoop. The seats were comfy, had alot more trunk room than I expected. The interior comfy, not as cramped as it looks from the outside. I'm pretty average, 5'11" 150 lbs, and where the Mitsu Evo VIII seats snugged me in tightly, these felt a bit more loose on the sides. Everything else was run of the mill 4-door sedan stuff.
So off we went to a long, flat, straight road (ty texas!) with no cops (ty middle of the month & not needing to meet goals yet!).
0-60. I left my stomach behind on the first 2 launches, wasn't expecting one of them, and managed to have my head hit the seat hard enough to see that familiar "ow i hit my head" burst of sparks. I still wasn't impressed. I drove a tiny little racing kart with a low 3 second 0-60, this 4.7 was for the birds. wtf was the blurry tunnel vision? wtf was the out of control feeling? simply wasn't there. I was having fun, but not impressed quite yet.
Then a Mustang GT showed up and was sitting next to us revving as we headed to dropoff some DVD's. It had a coffee can exhaust and a stupid kid behind the wheel. By the middle of second gear my roomie let off because we were 4 car lengths ahead. Now I was moderately impressed. So we looked for bikes to race. Found an R6, lost, but wasn't nearly as bad as you'd think. Kept up really well through second, but by third... well.. it was a bike.
So we dropped off the DVDs & went to the twisties we always run. Then I became seriously impressed. The more gas you give it, the more grip you have. I don't know of anything other than an Evo VIII that handles anything like it in its price range. The traction control is just as good (if not better) as anything Porsche has released. It was very, very flat in the corners, and the same streets that punish your kidneys in any stiff car I've been in barely registered as bumps at all.
I'm convinced. Worth every penny of that 30k. I don't care how ugly it is. Nothing in it's price range can compete. Maybe the '06 EVO VIV will, but it's not out yet. I want one. Immediately. Only 1 CC left to pay!
