Our first "car wars" bit was quite the conversation starter, so we thought we'd keep the blah-blah going with another three-way. Let's move laterally across the spectrum of performance coupes: the Ford Mustang Boss 302, Cadillac CTS-V coupe and BMW M3. Which would you buy?
Today's cars don't appear to be the most cross-shopped vehicles around, but we're not exactly Consumer Reports. So, market analysis be damned. Let's just pick one of these badasses already, shall we?
Ford Mustang Boss 302
This was a hard one. The Cadillac is truly the brawniest of the bunch, with enough supercharged displacement to dredge a canal, and nimble enough to lay low the twistiest of twisties. What more can one say about the BMW M3 that hasn't been said? It's simply the most balanced, best steering, revviest performance coupe out there.
And yet, here's the Boss 302, with less horsepower than the Caddy and hardly the pedigree of the BMW. Thanks to some clearheaded tweaking by some very smart, bottom-line-oriented engineers, the Boss delivers both the gut-stirring thrills of a muscle-car V8 and the sure-footedness of Europe's backroads sports cars. Despite the $50,000+ price tag, the Mustang still wears the cragginess of rough trade as a badge of honor. Sure, there's no independent rear suspension, but that's less of a liability in most cases than the forum nerds would have you believe.
Which would you buy?