The Mercury Capri. In an attempt to chase the Miata they made a heavy, slow, FWD!!!! car that was no fun to drive

Super underappreciated maybe, but definitely not the worst!  The SVX was supposed to be a competitor, after all.

Needed this:

While not a performance car per se, the contential putting a 4.6l forward of the front axle made no sense.

Controversial opinion but the U.S. market 240sx. While it was a well balanced car, the engine was quite literally a truck engine (see Nissan Frontier base model). Everyone else got the SR20 turbo and we were stuck with the 16ohp KA24DE. The base models has 4 lug rims while the higher models had 5 lug rims making rim…

I test drove one and I actually thought it was quite good. Way better than the ‘Sport’ versions of the Escort Ford was selling with the old crappy asthmatic CVH engine

Ford Escort LX Sport

Whenever I see one I want to ask the owner, “What happened to the back of it?”

That’s kinda the point though.

I guess, hard to find good numbers, especially MY to MY specific ones. WS6 and Z28 still look to be faster in nearly all metrics when comparing same MY’s and the skidpad number I found for the WS6 was at or just above the Prowler too. 

Mitsubishi GTO VR4

The gen2 Lancia Delta HF? Less horsepower than the gen1 HF except for the 8V cars, uglier, and generally forgettable. Drove alright, but a weak second act at best with no AWD and zero rally pedigree.

The 97 WS6 was also only running 6.7s 0-60 with an almost 15s quarter mile.
They didn’t get to 5.5s 0-60 until the 1998 revision. The WS6 was 5.5s, the Z28 was 5.7, the Prowler fell right between at 5.6s.

Uhh, from what I am seeing early prowler was like 7.2 0-60 and the later one was 5.9 while the WS6 and Z28 were mid to low 5's. 1/4 mile times it looks like the prowler was high 14's and WS6 in the mid to low 13's.

That is a fair point. I guess I would put them more in the “let-down” category than poor performance overall. I actually really like them, but I feel like the overall performance didn’t quite fit the looks to me.

Exactly, so long as you are looking at the 99+ Prowler. Once the revised V6 appeared in 1999, the Prowler kept up with other V8 muscle cars of the day because Plymouth made a lot of use of aluminum and did a good job keeping the weight down; it just didn’t have the V8 rumble. Look at the performance numbers and…

BMW 318ti. It’s like a weird mullet; BMW in the front, only there’s no party in the back. Just every image in my head of soccer moms with no assess. Ugly, slow and unreliable.

Not only was the Prowler quick for the era, putting down the same 0-60 and quarter mile times as the WS6/Z28, but it’s lightweight V6/transaxle combo lead to an almost perfect weight balance that net it better handling than the coveted Miata of the era.

2. Ford Probe/MX-6, the V6 versions were kind of cool, but not that great IMO

This answer really depends on how you quantify “performance car”. If I had a choice it would proably be one of the below.