#Best car etuner drivers#
Both drivers were in factory-created tuner cars: The Mitsubishi was the brand's aforementioned Lancer Evolution, while the Neon was a version called the SRT-4-Dodge's 265-hp force-fed four-cylinder, shoehorned into a 2900-pound bucket.įew would argue that a kid barely old enough to vote needs a lightweight, high-horsepower machine. Take the recent story of a drag race gone awry: A Mitsubishi Lancer and Dodge Neon rocketing west on the Long Island Expressway, exceeding speeds of 145 mph before the Neon crashed into a gas pump, its youthful occupants fleeing the wreckage and escaping incineration by mere seconds. Hundreds of tuning houses and companies sell simple intake upgrades, bolt-on supercharger kits and plenty more, all for the sake of turning your sensible purchase into something imprudent.īut with higher performance comes greater responsibility, and of course there are the widely publicized stories of those who haven't driven their upgraded machines with care. These dreams continue to fuel the sport-compact car aftermarket, a multibillion-dollar industry rooted in the desire to take what you have and make it better and faster, rather than trade in for a more robust offering. But their true value might be that they give hope to cash-strapped younger buyers about what's possible. Sure, you could buy one of the well-equipped "factory" tuner cars such as Mitsubishi's Lancer Evo or Subaru's WRX STi-souped-up versions of ordinary road cars that the carmakers release on their own, setting the bar for the capabilities of less expensive versions. That's the key to the success of the modern-day tuning aftermarket: The sense of accomplishment when you really worked for what you have. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play
And the best part? I did it on my own time, adding new pieces as my wallet allowed. Over the course of about five years, a combination of peer pressure, growing knowledge of the aftermarket upgrades available and lots of hard work turned my little green machine into a custom turbo-kitted monster, slammed on coilovers, Porsche wheels and a boosted take on the standard 8-valve that could walk VR6s (and a handful of V8s) like they were going backwards. But I was sold on the looks, and settled for the lowly 2.0-liter version, figuring I'd be fine with the drop in power. There was just one problem: The $25,000 sticker on that VR6-powered heartbreaker was a bit more than I could afford at the time. Immediately upon entering the VW dealership, I saw the GTi spinning in the middle of the showroom floor and ogled those curves from every angle. After college I finally landed my first real job, making it time for my first new car.
Here's how it all went down for the proud owner of a lime-green 1999 Volkswagen GTi, yours truly. For instance, why buy a 150-hp Mitsubishi Lancer, when there's one available that pushes almost double that: the special-edition, 300-hp Lancer Evolution? Because it's about the thrill of the build. To the nontuner type, that anyone would purchase a sport compact car (defined as a high-performance version of a compact) that's less than top-of-the-line must be mind-boggling.
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