It's not a supercar at all. But it is probably the best handling car you
can buy for under $100K. The Exige I have on order is a sport
version--read: lighter and suspended more for the track. It will probably
see as much track mileage as road time. I don't have time for an SCCA
campaign, but I can do the occasional track day.

Max


MAx, I think we have different definitions for Supercar. Handling to
me is the biggest element of what makes a car "great." Back in the day
my friends and I would laugh at straight line only metal like Grand
Nationals and Vettes. Either they couldn't handle or were very nervous
rides on any real twisty that wasn't perfectly smooth. No matter what
power a Mustang had, that fixed rear would always be the achilles
heal. A car like my Speed6 would murder a lot of faster cars with it's
refinded handling and quarter miles under 14 seconds is plenty of
power for the twisty runs...more than needed perhaps. These days there
are many cars pulling stock numbers that used to pretty rare. So for
me: if the car handles great and it can do a 1/4 mile in 5 seconds,
that's pretty "super." If it can do 165 MPH then it's a done deal. Now
there are cars that do 200 MPH and sub 4 second runs and quarters in
under 11 seconds. But they are usually not daily drivers. For example,
we could not use an STI as a daily driver with it's rally ready setup.
In that regard I would agree that an M5 is fantastic....fast AND
liveable day to day.
The Elise is the best handling car off the shelf so even without crazy
power it's certainly deserving of a supercar ranking. You also have to
give it up to the Elise because of the Toyota powerplant will be Miata
reliable. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.
One thing we can agree on...it's a fantastic time to be in love with
cars. Even my buddies BMW 330XI (that he bought used for a small sum
of 20K) is an amazingly refined car with plenty of fast fun on tap. As
you can probably tell I'm an AWD convert, which is why I chose the
Mazdaspeed6. I also live in a hilly windy area that can get snowy, so
I'd had to show some practicallity!


RB
35s5
NY