Gauntlet cast. Gantlet to be Run, then -

Front-wheel drive might be cheap, but it's crap.

Do you often tease the local Christians with upside-down crucifixes in that 12th bottle of Bletchley Extra-Dark?

I Loves glittering chestnuts like That. OOooooh .oO0Oo.
Or, to quote a Famous Orator of the Age, Bring. It. On..!

Ya wants tight twisties? - then beyond other considerations will be:
short wheelbase, with merely the boring checklist which creates decent 'handling', quite a number of ways.

Ya wants straight line Fast? - start with decent airflow shape coefficient,
plug in lots of
HP = 1.21 [MV]/t
and adjust to velocity desired.
Ho hum - Railton Special meets the 123 mph 125cc Lambretta
streamlined 'scooter' of ~'52. (MUCH faster.. later)

Ah but.. If what ya want is civilized transport,
effortless cruise beyond the Ton
(while still able to enjoy Nakarikov on the Cee Dee ~~ in-between playing boy racer ~~ in the swoops),
+ near enough theoretical-G braking and adequate control through swervery
== commensurate with a longish wheelbase:
Then: your Apples/Uglis nonsense converges on the idea of
-->\ufffd a GT.

A Gran Turismo
(and not just the plastic boot-tag on some cheesy Pontiac barge: the idea they stole the badger from.)

So, what's it gonna be, Punk?
(did I fire 5? or 6 rounds ..) Are ya feelin Lucky? ..Punk?

Swervery? Straight line? Civilized with a proper blend? ___ Other?

Now, on *this* edge of (a different and Bigger Pond) we calls yer over-hyped Yuppie Canoes, Boring Marin Wheels. For cause.

[Marin County, a stoned-throw from here: where new Styles in conspicuous consumption are clawed out of the piles of (gold dust in congealed Grand Marnier) every day:
the archetype for nothing-exceeds-like-excess.
Say, a BMW UAV? with mink seatcovers over the ex-Ricardo Montalban Cor-dob-an leather]

ie Mine's Cheaper (well, it was 8 yo when I got it - and still mint, and, based on adequate data -- it is very likely capable of 300K US-miles before retirement / any major thing like engine/trans rebuild == 2/3 to go..)

My Acura Plutocrat (Maybe Honda Inspire? in the hinterlands) will 0ut-GT Yours.
Oh, though incidentally - Mine's Bigger.
But just on the inside/outside: it drives impressively small-sized.

Health of My kidneys, liver, serenity-at-end of Long-day @ 90-110 - will exceed Thine.

And all with a mere 2.5 L, 5 cylinders and 28 mi/US gal if kept under 80ish/130 kph.
Top end (limiter) ~ 132/220 kph; a bit more, sans. ie

RWD is.. just.. so Fashionably \ufffd Retro \ufffd .. donchaknow?
Like, say, The New Mustang? - cha cha cha

At least re any remote association with.. the basically 'aircraft engineers' who began with that 3 cyl. 2-stroke engined critter, parlayed it into the Monte Carlos (still ugly but bloody Functional) and to the more conventional looking ('69) 99 models and their derivatives. Swedish engineers Loved 'Us' (as breathing creatures, that is) - and it showed in many engr. qualities.

(I owned 5 Saabs; last a '77 GL == along with Volvo that year: the first production cars with the Lambda-Sond emissions controls as are now universal. That system had never needed a single part replaced, either -- when I gave it away in '01.) It still runs, but now has a bum ignition switch as is non-trivial to fix - part of anti-theft, etc.. Its fate is unclear at this point - being a State away.

My local Expert (aircraft mechanic + Saab) informs me of the creeping.. = now galloping GMism / inaccessibility for repairs and the like. Seems to moi just an echo of embrace, extend, extinguish. Loose a Billy-virus and .. ..

GM engineers? - OK their boss-MBAs natch, some still snot-nosed: love Balance Sheets and corner offices and demographics. (But still can't get the formula right.) I'd take a new Saab as a gift, of course.


Then sell it.