Whenever a purchase is to be made it is a good idea to try to find the best product for the money. This gets even more important as the price goes up. A car is a good example of this. Nobody wants a lemon but those who don’t do the research often get stuck with them. This can happen two ways. First the car in question could have been abused or in a bad wreck. Second the car could be designed poorly or just not the correct design for the buyer. This is the aspect of car buying that will be focused on as the first can be avoided with ease. The goal will be to find the best class 3 sports car for the money. First of all it is a waste of money to buy a new car so to get the most for our money we will look at used cars. To give our readers an idea of what class 3 is it’s more than a Mustang and less than a Ferrari. We will look at four different cars from 1993 that can be bought for under $20,000. They are the Chevrolet Corvette, Mazda Rx-7, Nissan 300ZX turbo, and Toyota Supra. They will each be rated on five features. Horsepower to weight ratio, braking, skid pad or road holding, ergonomics, and drive feel. Each is equally important and will be rated on a scale of 1-10.

    As I did not have time to collect three advertisements for each car I chose two for one car, looked at Edmunds used car ratings and looked through the want ads. The second two are perhaps the only current advertisements used cars have other than word of mouth. As I drove the cars before I looked for ads I chose the winner in that category, the Rx-7, to find ads on. This was no easy task but I wasn’t going to give up as I had already spent time test driving four cars. The first item I found was the original sales brochure. This ran me $20 off eBay, as it’s a collector’s item now. This was very effective on selling the car. It covers every aspect of the cars design and development. These are the most important aspects that an intelligent shopper looks at. Catch phrases and colorful pictures don’t mean jack. Next I decided I wanted a commercial about the car. No easy task as Mazda stopped making the Rx-7 in 1995. I discovered that it is still made in Japan in much the same manner it was in 1993. Getting a video from Japan was next to impossible. I contacted the Mazda Sports Club of Washington. As luck would have it the president, John Duff, knew of a guy named Chris Regan that had an infomercial from Japan. I contacted him and he was nice enough to send me a copy. Although it was in Japanese I could tell the video portrayed the new Rx-7 in a very technical yet cool way. Edmunds gives estimated values and short overviews for used cars. This information combined with the want ads creates a good guide on finding a good car for the price. It should be noted that for a 93 average mileage should be around 70-80 K. To be consistent I looked only at cars in this price range. My findings on both the Internet and the paper were consistent with what Edmunds said the price should be. If all other things were equal the Rx-7 would have the most bang for the buck followed by the 300ZX turbo, Corvette, and Supra in that order.

    To aid me in my research I found two articles that compare these cars. The first was called Slide the High Country by Car and Driver. It compared six cars with ours ranking 1,2,3,4. Fourth was the Corvette. They said in part that it is an old design and has a “bucket-of-bolts feel”. Third was the Rx-7 with things said such as “the only pure sports car in the group” and “concerns about its reliability held the Rx-7 to third”. Second was the 300ZX. Comments included “big shortfall is grip” and “near-flawless mix of form, function, and class”. First was the Supra with almost no negative feedback. The next article was named Speeding Beauties by Car and Driver. This article did the same thing as the first but omitted the Supra. Mostly it just reaffirmed what the first said. These two articles give us a good idea of what the general public will choose but one person’s opinions may differ from somebody else’s and this decision is based on my opinions so we must go deeper.

    This is where the fun began. Test driving sports cars. This was important in getting a rating under the drive feel category. The first car I found to drive was a friend’s Corvette. There is nothing like the power of a V8. All the others had turbos, which created a power curve that didn’t have much in the low end. Over all it did feel like an old car and if I were to buy a Corvette I don’t think I could settle for this design. My friend’s out look on his car is that it’s classic compared to my other choices. Next was the 300ZX that my uncle has. Power and the feel from the controls were good such as steering but trying to see the road out of the window was very poor. I didn’t feel as if I had a grasp of what the car was doing. My uncle said that he likes the car but is thinking of selling it because he is tired of it. Next was a Supra at a local dealer. Lots of power and a nice feel over all. I could definitely see why this car won Car and Driver’s vote. The dealer said that with Toyota’s reputation for quality you can’t go wrong and I agree. Last was the Rx-7. This was a pain because they made so few of them. I drove down to Virginia to drive a private owner’s car that he had up for sale. Driving this car made me realize that the others I had driven weren’t really sports cars in comparison. At nearly six hundred pounds lighter than the next lightest car I really got a feeling that I was a part of the car. View of the road also helped as I could really see the front of the car and thus sense its limits. The real beauty of driving this car though was the rotary engine with sequential turbos. Having sequential turbos reduced the low-end power problem and the rotary engine’s ability to rev up to 9000 rpm made driving a blast. When asked why he was selling it the owner said he could no longer afford it as he is expecting a baby with his wife and needs something with a back seat.

   Following is a table that shows the results of my research. In the first two categories data was an average of that found in the two articles. Third only “Slide the High Country” was used because it used a 300-ft skid pad instead of a 196-ft. On a 196-ft skid pad speed will be lower and thus the benefits of down-force would be lost from wings and other such technologies. Ergonomics was my opinion as was drive feel as described above. It should be noted that horsepower to weight ratio was used because horse power alone means nothing. A car could have 1000 hp but if it weighed one million pounds it would be very slow. To give us an idea of the difference between these cars and your average sedan with about 150 hp the ratio would be around 20 to 1. Our best was 10.88 pounds to 1 horsepower.

    When buying a sports car one’s needs would be a car that looks cool and drives cool. When it comes to looking the coolest that is opinion. Driving cool on the other hand is not just how fast it can go. On a road a car can speed up, slow down, and turn so each of those were considered. The clear winner in all but one of these categories was the Mazda Rx-7 with a strong second being the Supra. Figuring in price the Rx-7 is also the cheapest. The Supra was the most expensive so that might cause some people to choose one of the others even if it had been first. Each stage in this process was important. Advertising would normally be what you start with because without it you wouldn’t even know the cars existed. The ads I found were very helpful. If I was the average consumer and the ads weren’t good I would simply choose choice B. Next is the research. My first automobile was a 1987 Blazer, which if you take the time to read consumer reports is a big time lemon. I was reminded every day when I drove it. Last is the test drive. With my Blazer it was bought sight unseen which was another mistake made by the purchaser (my father). In conclusion there are many other factors that would play a part in choosing a car. Reliability, fuel economy, a back seat and just plain old word of mouth are just a few. Generally speaking however no matter what you’re buying you can follow three simple steps. First find some good choices. Advertising is the key here. Second do research. Things like magazines and the Internet are the best here. Last test the items your self. The most reliable source of information is you.

    Charles Saftner
    10-12-99
    MCOM 125