These Cars Don't Deserve The Hate They Get

In a lot of ways, the 996 is a sweet-spot for 911s; but it really gets a bad rap from the less open-minded Porsche folks. Yes, the whole IMS/RMS thing can be a thing, but change it when you do the clutch; for one of the aftermarket solutions. Done. Yes; the interior seems like it was built to a cost, but it functions as well as any 911 interior that came before it. Yes, some people don’t like the headlights. They aren’t that bad. Yes, there was a lot shared with the Boxter. The Boxter is a good car to, and the 986/996 saved Porsche from bankruptcy.

The 996 is faster than every version of the 911 that came before it. It’s smaller and lighter than every version of the 911 that came after. Being the forgotten middle child makes them affordable for normal people. It doesn’t get a lot better...

Suggested by: James

Yes, we get it car guys, they trigger you like trans people trigger JK Rowling because they emphatically do not give a shit what you think.

They are totally fine. Are they luxurious? no. Are they fast? No. Are they sexy? Not even a little. Are they absolutely monsters for commuting and 99% of what you need a car for? 100% yes.

They have an 11 gallon fuel tank. They can get 4-500 miles out of that 11 gallon fuel tank. They are quiet. They are comfortable. They will get you onto the freeway with no worries about being fast enough, they will cruise at 80mph all day if asked. The slab-sided aero exterior gives you an absolutely huge interior for a vehicle of it’s size. They are grocery getters par excellence. They will haul your 2 giant teenagers and their hockey gear without complaint. You can speed with impunity because cops just assume they read the radar wrong when they see one speeding.

Do they take a little getting used to? Yep. But then, so does driving a Dodge hellcat that’s got more HP than an f-1 car and the handling abilities of a 1953 Ford Jubilee.

Suggested by: Buckfiddiousagain

Yes it is small, tinny, and slow. But it is also cheap and mostly reliable. It carries four adults, still has cargo space in the trunk, and it might be boring but it is gonna get you where you want to be.

The car does all the things a car is supposed to do. There are a lot more exciting cars that fail in one or more of those categories.

and

It’s a cheap econo-shitbox and doesn’t pretend to be anything more, yet folks hate it for being a cheap econo-shitbox. Then those folks complain about how there aren’t any cheap cars anymore.

Suggested by: skeffles and Forkish

They have a great combination of interior haul capacity, tow capacity, and fuel economy. For most families they are a better choice than an SUV or an extended cab pickup, but people avoid them because of the soccer mom stigma.

Suggested by: Hawkstrike6

It wasn’t fast, but it was a 1st gen hybrid. It gets you where you need to go in style without breaking the bank. It was released at a time when gas was at/near $5/ga. I think people were expecting the car to be the culmination of the CR-X, S2000, and the DelSoul instead of letting the CR-Z just be it’s own thing. I hope that it comes back or some spiritual successor now that hybrid engines have come so far in they last few years. CR-Z can go 0-60 in 6.1 which is nothing to laugh at, but it never got a good chance to grow. Too many Negative Nellies in the crowd.

Suggested by: Murphy

I mainly hear this from non-enthusiasts, but Miatas. People still think they’re feminine and wimpy, and don’t realize it’s the most raced car in history, and for good reason. For $60k, you can get a turn-key, track ready MX-5 Cup WITH a sequential gearbox.

They’re right. It costs $58,900 and its ready to go out the box.

Suggested by: MrMcGeein3D

I’m going to keep up my never-ending crusade of defending the DeLorean DMC-12.

Objectively a great car? Well, no. But in context and by the standards of malaise era “American” (DMC actually built in Ireland, of course) cars, it is underappreciated.

81 Corvette 0-60: 8.1s (fastest US production car that year)

81 Pontiac Trans Am 0-60: 8.7s

81 DMC-12 0-60: 8.8s (5 speed, we don’t talk about the 3-speed Renault slushbox)

It was overpriced for sure. You could almost get 3 Trans Ams for the price of one DMC at MSRP at the time, or very nearly in a new 911. But hey, at least you’d spend a little less at the gas pump with the DMC.

The DMC was constructed using a lot of off-the-shelf parts, but it was still the company’s first attempt in a brand new factory with a workforce of completely inexperienced labor and the cars tended to require a ton of time correcting production line issues after they were finished before they could be sold. The intent was to turbocharge them (and the low-compression PRV6 was in part chosen for this - the ability to fit it behind the rear axle instead of in front of it like in the 1976 prototype), but they only got a few turbo prototypes built before the Thatcher government closed the doors. The US Big 3 did their best to sabotage DeLorean by pressuring suppliers not to do business with DMC.

The interior is damn decent for 1981. The gullwing doors made tight parking spaces a breeze, needing only 14 inches of clearance to fully open. Despite the rear weight bias thanks to the rear mounted engine, the car on its Lotus Esprit-inspired chassis is pretty fun to drive. They look great, and properly cared for (no brillo pads, jesus), the brushed stainless looks great forever.

There were certainly some self-inflicted problems: John DeLorean positively pissed away company money on ridiculous bullshit all the time. He paid for prime office real estate in Manhattan, bought a company that made fake-snow machines for year-round ski slopes, tried to buy Lamborghini, tried to buy AMC out from under Chrysler, lived like a rockstar himself, etc.

The twin-turbo prototype cars were faster in tests than the Ferrari 308 and Porsche 928, and DMC ordered 5,000 TT engines from Legend Industries for the 1984 model year - which of course never got produced. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see what sort of refinements a second generation of the car would have brought. DMC was working with DuPont and experimenting with translucent automotive paint, too.

Suggested by: discovette

I firmly believe the reason people dislike Corvettes is their owners. Corvette owners are this really odd breed of the automotive hobby that believe everything about their car is peak automotive engineering and that everything else is second rate. It also drives me bonkers that someone would go to a car show or meet, plop a chair down, and sit by THEIR car. Bro, you see your car every day in the garage.

Yet the other really weird thing about owning a Corvette is the inter-generation “politics” that I don’t believe I’ve experienced in any other model or marque. When the C8 was revealed you got a ton of owners that were like “I’m keeping my C6 or C7 forever,” “My car is absolutely fine,” “yada yada.” Yet I think I know what exactly happens. Many Corvette owners are in little car clubs and they tell themselves they’re fine with what they own until their club president gets the newest Corvette, then the club treasurer gets one, then all of a sudden at meet ups and local cruise ins down to the BBQ joint on Saturday no one is looking at that C6 or C7 any longer because there’s tens of thousands of them out there and after a while they all look the same anyways - even with the entire JC Whitney catalog of stick-ons thrown at them. So that basically means said owner has to go out and get a C8 now, just so their car can be “peak automotive engineering” and “everything else is second rate.”

And this whole saving your car thing... Corvettes remain cheap because every grandpa saved their torch red automatic convertible to not go above 50,000 miles, which saturates the market and makes it so it doesn’t make sense to go out and buy a higher mileage car. Non-turbo MKIV Supras - for example - go for what they go for because no one saved a non-turbo MKIV Supra. Corvette owners could really take a hint on enjoying their cars more.

I’ve come to learn in my own Corvette ownership... just don’t associate with the owners. Stay away from the clubs and the cliques. Most contemporary Corvettes even back to the C4s represent utterly fantastic value for the performance that’s presented. I think many forget the C4 was at one point banned from the SCCA for it’s performance potential, which lead to the Corvette Challenge series. I have just ultimately come to realize a lot of people can’t get past the stereotypical ownership mindset.

Suggested by:2ndgear

People still think of the TT as a secretaries car based on the early years. The TTRS is not a secretaries car unless she’s a gearhead. It’s faster 0-60 than a stock 911 and it tracks like it’s on rails. Oh and it was $30K less than the 911.

Suggested by: mlpw

These are two of the most wildly hated modern cars. The eternal butts of the joke. Despised by car enthusiasts and the public alike. But they really don’t deserve it.

At the end of the day, what are these cars? They’re compact, affordable wagons, with unique styling, affordable prices, decent reliability and efficiency, great practicality and both even offered manual, high performance versions with serious power. They were everything Jalops claimed to love.

“If an automatkers sold affordable wagons with a stickshifts and powerful engines in the USA, I’d buy it today!” is basically the official Jalop motto, yet nobody purchased these when they were around.

They’re the antidote to the modern, generic crossover. And we yet we just made fun of them.

Suggested by: caddyak

This will be a super unpopular opinion here but I guess thats sort of the point.

I think the 3G eclipse doesn’t desrve the hate the automotive community gives it.

Yes it wasn’t as sporty as the 2g, but if you judge the car on the merits of what it was and not what came before, it was actually a very competent Grand Tourer.

Super comfortable. Nice comfy leather 8 way adjustable seats. At least on the higher trim.

Decently quick. The GTS had 210 horsepower. The VW GTI of the time had 180.

Large hatch back that surprisingly swallowed a bunch more stuff than the fastback looks would imply.

And IMO, looks a lot better than the 2g or the 4g. Yes this is super subjective, and car people tend to think its ugly, but as a teenager who had one... all I can say is that girls of the time did NOT think it was ugly.

So yea, all the makings of a good GT. Comfortable, Powerful, Practical, and Good looking.

Suggested by: Atomic