Those pesky Japanese manufacturers are always keeping the cool small stuff for their own markets. Why oh why can’t we get some mini car love here in North America? Apparently Mitsubishi has added the Ralliart moniker to their JDM Colt and bumped the turbo’d 1.5 liter 4 cylinder up to a whopping 163 hp. Other upgrades include lighter 16 inch wheels and the usual interior dress up bits.

Come on Mitsubishi! Give us a nice Christmas present by bringing this little beast to our shores!

Via Carscoop

Years ago I remember reading a Peter Egan story about his love of the Bugeye Sprite. There was a bit in there about how much fun the little cars were to drive. You could race through an intersection at full opposite lock, at 35 mph and nobody would even notice that you were having the time of your life.

Today, Tom Ford over at Top Gear is telling the same tale:
Now I’ve come to the conclusion that I actually really get off on strange little cars that require more driver input.
Continue reading →

Following unveiling the new C30, Volvo announced that the new 2 door will be sold in the US market. If memory serves correctly, the last time we saw a 2 door Volvo on North American soil was the 1984 242T. With a 2.5 liter 5 cylinder putting 218 hp & 236 lb/ft this will be one hot hatch. We can’t wait to get our hands on one of these when it debuts as a 2008 model.

Press release and loads of pics after the break

Continue reading →

It wasn’t too long ago that we lamented the disappearance of the pocket rocket, that affordable, fun to drive class of cars once ruled by the VW GTI. The current version of Volkswagen’s GTI has a bit of that old dna lurking in that chassis, as evidenced by the results of Popular Mechanics testing. The folks at PM tested 100 cars and voted the the 200 hp GTI as the winner of the Driving Fun category.

VW press release after the break

Continue reading →

In response to my post asking where the pocket rockets have gone, Boston Listed a handful of cars currently for sale that fit the bill of Pocket Rocket. What struck me as odd was the prices he qouted for these cars, so I thought it might be fitting to do some cross border shopping. Often, vehicle pricing varies greatly from North of the border to South of the border. What may be an affordable car in the United States may not be such a great deal up here in The Great White North.

Pocket Rocket North South Price Comparo

Cooper S USA $21,900

Canada $30,600

RSX USA $20,325

Canada $27,100

WRX USA $24,495

Canada $35,495

Civic Si USA $20,290

Canada $26,080

Just for fun, as we have a couple of Elise owners as regular readers, I thought I’d throw out the numbers for it as well.

Elise USA $42,990

Canada $58,550

Now that we see the full break down, you can see that some cars that are a great deal down south are not so cheap up here. The Elise, while still a great car for the money, is $15,500 more in Canada than it is in the States! Given current currency exchange rates, where the Canadian dollar is about 92 cents on the US dollar, that certainly doesn’t account for the giant price increase.

There is no question that there are some great little cars running around out there. The Garage definition of a Pocket Rocket includes the word VALUE. Perhaps I’ll change my previous comments a bit to say that there are no real budget concious pocket rockets available in Canada, rather than in North America.

In commenting on the list of cars teens want, I got to thinking about the state of entry level sports cars in North America. There isn’t a single, market grabbing entry level sports car, aka pocket rocket, available in North America today. Honda enthusiasts may disagree, but the civic hasn’t been a pocket rocket since the SI circa 1989 & even then it wasn’t really all that special until it was built up.

The Garage definition of a Pocket Rocket is a small, affordable car which is fun to drive.

Arguably, the original pocket rocket was the Mini. Small, affordable and fun to drive. Built for more than forty years, with a motorsports history that has been matched by very few other cars, the Mini has developed an incredible following of enthusiasts.
In the late seventies, Volkswagen introduced the Rabbit. A cheap, affordable little car that was fun to drive. In 1982, VW upped the ante with the Rabbit GTI. A little more horsepower that a regular Rabbit, with a beefed up suspension & sportier interior made for a car that youthful enthusiasts clamoured for. The chassis responded very well to simple, common upgrades like tires and springs. There was incredible aftermarket support for the GTI that supplied real performance improvements that were often a simple bolt on. Even a hot cam was only a couple of hours work for the home tinkerer. It was always fun seeing the reaction on spectators faces at a local autocross when a GTI lifted the inside rear wheel six inches off the ground. Later in the Eighties, the GTI started to gradually move upscale, with size and price that moved upwards accordingly. The grassroots GTI was forgotten by VW.

In 1989, Suzuki introduced the Swift GTi. A 1900 pound, 2 door hatch that had just a tick over 100 horsepower. A taught suspension, coupled with fat tires & 4 wheel disc brakes made for a little car that was an absolute blast to drive. With a reworking of the stock ECM, the 1300 cc engine would spin to over 10,000 rpm. Yes, you read right, 10,000 rpm! Best of all, it was cheap. In Canada, you could pick up a loaded GTi (no a/c of course) for under $13,000. Unfortunately, the Swift’s reputation was overshadowed by it’s anemic cousins, the 3 cylinder Chevy Sprint & Pontiac Firefly. In 1990, Suzuki was sued by VW & forced to drop the i and the car became the Swift GT part way through the 1990 model year. Had the Swift been marketed by Honda or Toyota there is no question it would have sold much better. As it was, the car was produced until 1994 and was never replaced in the Suzuki model line up.

As far as I can see, the Swift Gt was the last true pocket rocket sold in North America. The GTI is still available, but at a starting point of almost $30,000 it is hardly affordable. Toyota had the right idea with the echo/Yaris, but the car was downright slow. You could hop it up with the available TRD bits, but to do the full job would almost double the price of the car. The Dodge SRT-4 comes close, but it’s not very friendly to the backyard mechanic. The current Mini, while very cool is hardly inexpensive or easy to work on. In Europe, all sorts of small, sporty and affordable beasties are available & the aftermarket is there to support all of them.
It’s time for some car manufacturer to build a real Pocket Rocket that we can buy here.

The guys & girls at the Florida Car Club have posted their list of the top 10 cars a teen would want. The list is as follows:

10th - Dodge SRT-4

9th - Pontiac GTO

8th - Volkswagen GTI

7th - Mitsubishi EVO

6th - Acura RSX

5th - Scion TC

4th - Subaru WRX STI

3rd - Nissan 350Z

2nd - Ford Mustang.

1st - BMW M3

This is a pretty lofty list, I hope these guys come from well off families! Not that I disagree with the cars, but I think the expectations of many young people are way off in left field. When we were in high school (I know, I’m going to sound old here) the special cars were the ones that cost more than about three grand. The rest of us scraped together enough to pick up something that was half that. I was very proud of the big green 69 Plymouth that I inherited when my grandfather stopped driving.
With 2 guys who had “real” jobs in our circle, we built 4 VW Rabbits over a couple of years. The original built Rabbits were sold to finance the new GTI when it made its’ debut in 1982. That car sold for something like seven grand. You could throw a few bits on the car and have a truly fun car that could be driven reliably. Many of us even got our first taste of autocrossing behind the wheel of a GTI.

While the FCC guys have the GTI on their list, it is now a thirty thousand dollar car. Gone is the cheap little pocket rocket. Number one on the list is an M3 of all things. A wonderful ride, no question. But how much money does a kid have that a car of this magnitude is even on his radar?

Perhaps this list should be the Teenagers top ten cars to dream about list.