The eternal question

Car Wars: Tuner vs. Muscle
It continues to be debated by car enthusiasts today so I thought I'd weigh in and ask my readers what they think.

So lets start by defining the two opponents. The criteria for a muscle car by common definition is pretty simple. 2 doors, midsize, rear-wheel-drive, and a large powerful engine with lots of low-end torque for straight-line acceleration. Good modern examples include (and are pretty much limited to) Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro, and Dodge Challenger. Tuner is a bit more blurry. Wikipedia says the following: "A tuner car, often from an Asian or European manufacturer, is a car that combines comfort, practicality and decent gas mileage with the potential of becoming a high performance vehicle with modifications, primarily to the engine, as they normally provide decent handling due to their light weight and their more sophisticated suspensions." Good examples include the Honda Civic, Scion tC and Subaru Impreza among others.

So what's got what on what? Tuner cars usually have 4-cylinder engines, which, tho frugal, aren't high performance by any stretch of the imagination. The engine mods for tuners almost always take the form of superchargers- pumps or a crank driven directly by the engine to force air through it, or turbochargers- forced induction by means of a turbine powered by the engine's exhaust. The result is more power, but a charged V4 can't match the naturally smooth power delivery of a v8. Instead of explosive low-end torque rocketing you off the line, tuners have to contend with turbo-lag (the time it takes for boost to scroll up) and a non-linear torque curve. Acceleration and top speed? points 1 and 2 to muscle cars.

One thing tuner cars have going for them is handling. A vast majority of tuner cars are either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. While torque-steer sometimes makes hard acceleration annoying for FWDers, you don't need to worry near as much about fishtailing around the curves, which could come in handy, especially during bad weather. Additionally, tuners are light which helps cornering, and most have a tighter chassis than muscle cars (tho modern muscle cars chassis are much tighter than their classic predecessors who were generally large and loose), which equates to less body roll. Point for tuners.

Style? That's a toss-up. It's a matter of preference really. On one hand, I simply love the style of muscle cars. A big hood, wide grille, and flared out rear-haunches give the casual viewer a good idea of what that car should do to a wimpy 4-banger in the straights. One the other hand, visual modifications on a tuner from their stock appearance (vinyls, body kits, spoilers, etc) could give the impression that the owner put serious wrench-time into making their car look and perform better than when they left the dealership, which I find very respectable. Of course, they can also make the car look cheesier than most Burger King sandwiches and about as classy, while some people find muscle car styling outdated or tasteless.

Cost is a big factor. While stock tuners are generally cheap, performance parts and labor aren't so tuning one into a high performance vehicle can be an expensive hobby. That being said, even when super or turbo charged, your average tuner gets much better gas mileage than the big thirsty v8 of a muscle car. Also, a lot of manufacturers make 'pre-tuned' high performance variants of some of their more affordable cars- for instance the Mazdaspeed3, Honda Civic Si, VW GTI, etc. Even American automakers have jumped on this trend; modern offerings include the Chevy Cobalt SS and the Dodge Caliber SRT 4. These sport compacts are generally regarded as fantastic bargains for people interested in purchasing speed on the cheap. To get a really affordable muscle car, you'd either have to buy one used or settle for a smaller v6 engine.

If you asked me to chose which group I favor, I'd have to go with tuners. Sure, muscle cars have several good advantages; I can't get past the style of a muscle car, I'm one of those people that's really annoyed by torque steer- I don't like having to control the steering wheel as it saws in either direction when I'm accelerating, even to a relatively slow speed-, and I like how RWD feels on the highway. Tuners though are cheaper to own and operate, there are more of them available to choose from, and you don't need to put sandbags in the trunk during bad weather. Additionally I just don't trust American manual transmissions as much. I like driving stick, and in my experience European cars have the smoothest stickshift action. Interestingly enough, American sport compacts don't use American stickshifts; the 6-speed used on the Dodge Caliber SRT 4 is from Getrag- a German company- while the 5 speed sticks used on the Chevy SS compacts (Cobalt and HHR) are supplied by Saab, I guess maybe someone clued them in...

If I had to pick a favorite modern muscle car it'd be the new Camaro. I like the style of the Mustang best out of the 3 major models, but the style of the Camaro is still breathtaking, inside and out. Unlike the Mustang it's got an independent rear suspension which makes for better handling, while availability of a stickshift on the Dodge Challenger is limited to v8 models only which makes the Camaro more attractive to me at the more affordable v6 level.

Until pretty recently my favorite tuner car was a toss-up between the Volkswagen GTI and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. The GTI and I have a special bond (after I was born, I was driven home from the hospital in one), and I've taken a new one on a test drive and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I drove the Evo while working at a Mitsubishi dealership, and really had the time of my life. But there's been a disturbance in the force.

That disturbance is the new Chevy Cobalt SS turbo. You might be wondering wtf a cobalt is doing competing with the likes of an evo for my affection. I'm just as surprised. It's a COBALT; bottom of the class as far as economy cars go. Your basic cobalt has a fuel-efficienct engine but little else: sleepy styling, driving dynamics that can be summed up by saying "blah" really loudly, a cheap interior and uncomfortable seats. The SS trim fixes all that with a 260 hp turbo engine, sport suspension and steering, performance brakes and bolstered sport bucket seats. I pay attention to the big car magazines; Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and Road and Track, all of whom do regular comparative tests to figure out which car in a given class is the best value or gives the best performance for the money. In sport compact comparison tests across the board the Cobalt SS tore competition up.

In Car and Driver's Lightning Lap issue, where it puts sports cars ranging from cheap sport compacts to high-end six digit exotics through a comprehensive-that means twists, turns, climbs etc- 4.2 mile course, the little-Cobalt-that-could (dominate) posted lap times quicker than the evo but also, just for frame of reference, better than the likes of a BMW 1 series, Honda S2000, Lotus Elise, Audi S5 and the Lexus ISF among others- cars that are AT LEAST $10,000 more. C&D said of the Chevy, "Despite the explosive power and front weight bias, the Cobalt SS resisted the typical understeer found in front drive cars. The SS goes about its business with almost no drama. You only realize how quick it is when you arrive at start-finish and wonder, 'How'd I get here so fast?'" Road and Track compared it to a more class-conscious crowd of just the Cobalt SS, Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart (a diet evo), Subaru Impreza WRX, and the previous king-of-the-sport-compacts, the Mazdaspeed3, on an autocross course with skidpad and slolom tests. The Cobalt SS outperformed. They said the following: "...the Cobalt SS doesn't just compete with the foreign cars, it beats them. It is the hottest-performing sports compact you can buy in the U.S. for under $30,000." Disturbance indeed, looks like I'll have to go drive this one. The downside to the Cobalt SS, so everyone says, is its bland interior and exterior. But those same shortcomings to me seem like exactly what makes it a sleeper hit. As Han solo would say, "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts." The GTI and Evo may need to move over...

So let me pose this question to my readers which you can answer back in a comment- Tuner or muscle? What's your favorite of each and why?

Till next time guys