I remember that at the time it was a badge of honor if you owned a ZR1 or gen 4 Viper and could drive it into the 10's unmodified. Perfect DA, a well prepped track, and some clutch abuse could net you the magic high 10 second time slip.

This wasn’t the only thing that got a SHO motor.

Phil Schilke sounds like every non-racing a-hole at an autocross event who has a camaro at home with a 600 hp 327 that will turn 10K rpm and dust everything on course. He didn’t take it today because it’s at his buddy’s getting painted.

GRRM and his RX-7

Obviously, Jon Voight’s LeBaron.

They didn’t “sport them up”. Maybe the dampers are slightly better than before, but nothing about this is sporty.

this isn’t attainable for 99.9% of people

Where AC is rare...

Or they were projecting demands higher than what actually sold.

And your house’s square footage is...?

And the average British home’s is...?

Yup. 100% thought it was a Sentra Spec-V. Which was a fun little car in its time.

Dodge was into it, too. You could very easily build a 350hp Neon with the Stage 3 kit, a complete set of parts straight from Dodge. It was reliable, too. I installed the 285hp Stage 2 kit on my own SRT-4 as soon as it was available in early 2004. I’m still driving it today at over 246K miles! With a few other things…

When I read “coolest version of the most boring car” and saw the shape, I immediately thought it was this at first:

Yeah, Maxima was styled like that before the Sentra. IIRC, the Sentra spec V had similar 5 spoke wheels to this Malibu custom.

“I’ll be honest, I thought most of you made many hundreds of K a year”

Good call. I was getting early 2000s Sentra vibes.

Looks more jelly bean FWD sedan. Like a 2000s Nissan Maxima.

It is definitely not my thing.  But in an age when all vehicles ar trending toward gray jelly bean design language, I’ll welcome anything weird.

This was a GM build for the 2001 SEMA show - the Maxx didnt come out until 2004.

I’d say I’m the target demo. Reasonably well-off but not rich. Enough money to buy stupid nonsense (boats...why did it have to be boats). As a kid born in the 80s and loving life in the 90s, I love the throwback 80s looks with modern flair. I love the headlights and taillights. 200 mile range would never be an issue…