Performance Comparison
|
This is not
technically an article, but rather a chart of how well the Fiero in its
V-6 form compares with other modern sports cars. It is my theory that the
years 1985 to 1995 may be viewed as another performance car era, much like
the mid-60's to the early 70's. After all, by 1985 the Mustang finally got
some bite, the Camaro and Firebird were on their way up, fuel injection
finally became the system of choice, the Corvette sailed into the 150 mph
mark, Ferrari dawned the more proper 328, the Fiero got a V-6, the MR2
joined the cheap mid-engine car ranks, the 300ZX was becoming a sports
car, the RX-7 was on its second year with the 13B motor (also featuring
fuel injection) and was ready for its new body and fully independant
suspension, and many new sports cars were on the horizon. By 1990, the
sports car frenzy was in the early stages of the boom with Nissan
introducing a more acceptable and far more potent 300ZX, Ferrari gave us
the 348, the MR2 was ready for a redesign, The Dodge Stealth and twin
Mitsubishi 3000 GT were ready to introduce us to overweight turbo luxury
coupes that featured all-wheel-drive, Mazda again would shortly revamp
their aging RX-7, the pudgy little Miata helped define "cute" in
sporting cars, the NSX helped to civilize the term exotic and showed us
just how practical a high end sports car could be, the Corvette was
getting set for a large power jump and refreshed appearance, the Viper was
appearing in car shows and magazines, Toyota introduced the arguably ugly,
but high performing revised Supra, Porsche introduced new iterations of
its idea of a sports car, and just around the corner the Pony Car Wars
were ready for round 2. 1995 brought an abrupt hault to much of the
performance boom with cancellations (or at least reassignments) of cars
like the RX-7, MR2, Supra, 300ZX, and more recently, the Camaro/Firebird
and possibly mid-engine Ferraris. This period of time should be regarded
as one of the golden ages in automotive history. No other period of time
offered so many performance car choices from such a wide variety of
sources. The cars that were created during that era are still modern and
exciting by today's standards and support for them will probably only
grow. Below is a list of cars from that timeframe that compare with the
Fiero from a raw performance standpoint. This comparison does not take
into account specific traits, behavior, or feel. This is simply a
comparison of basic performance numbers. Each example is for a specific
model year, but often represent an entire generation since the vehicle had
not been changed each surrounding year. Tolerances are listed in each
category. Performance test data has been taken from Road & Track and
Car & Driver articles. Let me know if there are any cars you would
like me to add or that I may have missed. This is by no means a complete
list.
|