USED CARS - Sports Cars Reviews

We found lots of well-done and informative sports car reviews for this update. The very best are those at Car and Driver magazine, Edmunds.com and Motor Week. All have extensive experience reviewing cars, and it shows in the complete and in-depth reporting they do. We also found quality reviews at Consumer Guide, Motor Trend, Forbes and Automobile Magazine. Consumer Reports' automotive reviews cover the high points, but they're not as detailed as those from some reviews to which we give higher ratings. On the other hand, Consumer Reports provides some reliability and resale information that's hard to find anywhere else.

For this report, we restrict our coverage to vehicles that fit the image that most people conjure up when they think of the term "sports car" -- sleek hardtop coupes, racy convertibles and roadsters. If you are interested in one of the high-performance and usually much more luxurious four-door sports sedans , we offer a separate ConsumerSearch report that covers those in detail.

Most traditional sports cars are built for speed and handling, not comfort and practicality, and many are very expensive compared to the majority of vehicles on the road. You can more or less forget about hauling much in the way of people or cargo. For example, if there's a back seat, you can be fairly confident it's not one most people will want to spend much time in. Almost all are two-door models, although a few coupes have "suicide doors" (doors hinged on the trailing edge) to give a little better access for anyone silly enough to try to sit in their way-too-tight back seats.

The Mazda RX-8 (*est. $26,435 to $31,070) is the only rotary engine sports car sold in the United States. In many ways, this vehicle a study of sports car contradictions. Though classified as a coupe, it's a four-door coupe with two small “suicide doors” that swing out to allow access to a very cramped rear seat. The rotary engine is one of the smallest (in terms of engine displacement) sold in the U.S., yet it is capable of churning out up to 232 horsepower, and it can do so without the shake, rattle and roll that's the trademark of high-performance conventional piston engines. Because of that, the Mazda RX-8 is said to provide a much more comfortable driving experience than most sports cars -- comfortable enough to be a good choice as an everyday car.

So what are the drawbacks according to reviews? For one thing, if you are driving it every day, it's a good idea to budget lots of extra cash for gas as fuel economy is said to be inexcusably bad given its very small, albeit powerful, engine. As Car and Driver colorfully puts it, the RX-8 "guzzles gas like a private jet." But even more troubling, RX-8s have been anything but trouble free and we've seen numerous reports of engine-related recalls of earlier models. That said, the car retains many fans among enthusiasts, and even Car and Driver found enough to like about the RX-8 to declare it a winner in a recent four-car comparison.  ... Continued

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

Three sports cars in three different price categories get our nod as the best choices. The Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Porsche 911 are clear choices in the entry level and premium categories. Things are much closer among mid-priced sports cars. We give the nod to the Chevrolet Corvette, but critics say you won't go too far wrong if you opt for either the Porsche Boxster or its Cayman model -- similar cars except for body style (coupe vs. roadster).