The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Send Off Edition #blogpost (FINALE)

Merry Christmas, CTzens!

To start off, I’d like to make an apology to Martin Burns, Volk, and Kenny. I said in the past that I would make a special edition GBU with CTzens’ cars (theirs), but the tag team known as “Writer’s block and School” hit like Kenshiro on steroids. However, no matter how little support I got for this series, I just could not leave it hanging.

On another note, this episode will be more personal. It will be a bit more subjective than objective, if that makes sense. It’ll be reasons as to why the following cars are my favorites/least favorites rather than their actual place in how good or bad they are. Anyway, let’s continue.

The Good: Saleen S7 Twin Turbo

If you know me, then this was practically required. The S7 was made from 2000 to 2009 in Irvine, California. The S7 is powered by a massive Ford 427 engine in the middle-rear (ironically not from Ford), pushing 750 horsepower, and 700 lb-ft of torque. Connected to the wheels by a 6-speed manual transmission, the S7 goes from 0-60 in only 2.8 seconds, a top speed of 250 mph, and a ¼ mile time of 10.5 seconds.

The S7, for lack of a better word, is a featherweight. You can thank its all-carbon body and aluminum-steel chassis for that. It weighs exactly 1,346 kg, and is sitting on fully-adjustable suspension. This allows the S7 to corner at 1.03g and have a turning radius of 22 feet.

"I'm going off the rails on the crazy train!"

One of the things that makes the S7 my personal favorite car is how absolutely mental it is. Just look at it! It’s like a GT1 turned road car that gained some junk in the trunk! And by junk, I mean sheer unbridled power. It’s not every day you hear of such a beast, let alone witness one. Just LOOK at it! 10/10 looks AND performance!

“Implacable…car.”

Another thing that makes the S7 just so damn awesome is that it’s practically unstoppable to every other car. It eats Ferraris, destroys Porsches, kills Corvettes, and wrecks GT-Rs all at the same time. I’m not even joking with the Ferrari part; The S7-R was so damn good at GT1 racing, even FERRARI acknowledged it!

Taking it up to eleven, the S7 in lowest form hits 230 mph. In twin turbo form, it hits 250 mph. In competition-spec, the FASTEST one, it hits 270 MPH. The S7 is straight-up unnaturally fast, and it’s God’s chariot because of that.

The Bad: Mazda MX-5 NA

Yes, I’m going there.

The Miata NA was made from 1989 to 1997. It came equipped with a 1.8 liter I4 engine, pushing around 100 horsepower and 100 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels, thanks to either a 5 speed manual or 4 speed automatic transmission. This gave it a 0-60 of 9 seconds, and top speed of about 126 mph.

The major selling point to the Miata is its handling, thanks to a 50/50 weight balance and weight of 940 kg, This gives the NA a lateral G of .82 and turning radius of 9.7 m.

Actually, that .82 G isn’t all that great. Must be the small tires.

The fanbase makes it worse. (RANT WARNING)

The one thing that has always gotten under my skin with the Miata is how incessantly annoying its fanbase is, from the drivers to the dreamers. It’s always the same thing; “Miata is always the answer!” “It’s the best car ever!” “Handling is still speed, so the Miata is fast!” No, it f*cking isn’t fast, it is not the answer, and it is not the best.

It’s too small to be practical at all. Look at how goddamn small it is compared to the Viper (and Corvette):

I sat in a Viper once, and it was absolutely cramped. By legs were touching the SIDES of the steering wheel. Now, compare that to the significantly-smaller Miata. It’s TINY. It will never be safe in a head-on crash, or practical for a daily drive.

It’s not even practical in a sports-car kind of way. It only makes 112 horsepower AT BEST, and even less at the wheels. And while it may be light as a feather, it went from 0-60 in 9.6 SECONDS. That is absolutely pathetic. Yes, I get it was made for a pleasurable ride, but at an MSRP for 4 grand less than the Camaro SS of the same year (1990), how good could it be? It doesn’t help that something that light gets thrown around easily.

The fanbase just makes it worse. Sometimes, I hear people bring up the NB, the objectively better MX-5 in comparison to the NA. And yet, there will always be the one guy to say “The NB is the better car, the NA is the better Miata”. That makes not one lick of sense. I’m surprised everyone overlooks the NB anyway, it has reasonable power, it’s bigger, more masculine (in my opinion), will have less rust, and has a MazdaSpeed version pushing 230 hp. But what do people say? “NA MIATA”. How about “NO Miata”?
To add insult to injury here, everyone ass-pulls the “it can be modded!” retort. This same thing can apply to every other car ever made on the face of the Earth. It’s lazy and stupid to think that the Miata is the best, just because it can be modded to do so. It wouldn’t be about who has the better car at that point, it’d be about who has more put into their car.

In short, I loathe the Miata, and all that it stands for. If you like the car, then that is 100% okay with me. I don’t dislike the car as a whole, either. But out of all cars, the NA Miata is arguably my least favorite.

The Ugly: Pontiac Aztek

The Pontiac Aztek was made from 2000 to 2005, long before I could be made aware of its tumor-inducing styling. It came with a V6 that pushed less power than a crippled horse, less torque than a rotary engine (I shit you not, it was 7 ft-lbs less), and more weight than that test will have on your grade.

“Handling”? What handling? I could steer a Dodge Challenger Demon on Irohazaka better than this thing can turn. It’d be like trying to turn a boat on land with the anchor down.

*vomits*

Every time I see an Aztek on the road, I get slightly sick. Just thinking of all the plastic on it makes me wonder how many dinosaurs died so that could be constructed. It looks like something that came out of a broken 3d printer. I’m talking melted plastic smeared all over. It’s cheap, tacky, and ugly.

The face is even worse. Tom Peters, the head designer of it, said they were going for an “in-your-face” look. And hoooo boy, that went horribly right. It’s like one car mashed on top of another car, and held together with metal scraps found in a junkyard. The double headlights don’t help it, either.

It gets worse with the rear. What even is the thing between the lights? Is it a window? I’m happy it’s tinted, because then you can hide the shame on your face when you’re driving. It’s such a poorly-placed window. Who would put it there? How did that get approved? The conversation probably went something along the lines of this:

"Hey Peters!" “Yeah?” “You know the Aztek project we’re working on?” “Yep. Have you improved the design?” “I have! I decided to stick on a giant tinted window on the rear, despite the fact that the car is so tall, no-one can see out of it!” “Wow, that’s great! Send off the design. We’re gonna make millions off of this beast!”

Also, the rear looks like a Prius Mk3, except more obese.

The interior is the cherry on the icing with the hideousness of the Aztek. I swear, I have never seen a more boring, uninspired, repulsive interior in my entire life. There is plastic EVERYWHERE, it’s cramped, it’s tacky, it’s awful. Just LOOK AT THE DASHBOARD. LOOK AT IT. And the shifter! What is that? Is this supposed to be like a fighter jet? This isn’t an Aventador! It’s abysmal.

Never should anyone have to suffer through owning this eyesore. Excluding this Aztek with an LS7 and side pipes…

…the Aztek will never look good.

That's the end of that.

Thank you all for reading this far. I would ask you to leave a comment and suggest some more cars, but only the former is possible. It’s been a long run of this series, and I’m happy I could end it off without it hanging. Thanks for reading.

It’s been Flux of CarThrottle. Happy holidays. Peace.