America's Best Handling Car

Which is the best-handling car in the land? Car magazines have been answering that question for a half-century. Early on, tire and suspension technology was so rudimentary that auto scribes like Uncle Tom McCahill could easily sort out a field of contenders by taking each for a brisk drive around a racetrack or some nice twisty roads with no more instrumentation than a stopwatch and the seat of his pants. Today's worst-handling car is probably as agile on its well-shod feet as some of the most exotic mid-century sports cars were, and sorting out the crme-de-l'handling-crme now takes more than the simple biological assometer. As technology has advanced, vehicle-dynamics engineers have dreamed up better and better -ometers with which to quantify the myriad constituent elements of handling, and our crack technical team-especially Gizmo-Wizard Reynolds-has been itching to outfit a squadron of spry sportsters with the latest crop of g-meters, height-sensors, potentiometers, and, yes, even a real-live electronic assometer in order to once again answer The Question.

Step one in any such venture is to select the contestants. To shed some meaningful light on the topic of dynamic handling, we decided to invite top-handling cars representing the four major driveline layouts-front engine, front drive; front engine, rear drive; front engine, all-wheel drive; and mid- or rear engine. We brainstormed a list of 32 great-driving cars, our eight favorites in each category, then combed through past road-test data, reread our subjective reviews, and winnowed that list down to 10 finalists. (You'll find the full list and our reasoning behind the eliminations at motortrend.com.) We also endeavored to keep the finalists relevant to our readers by eliminating ultra-rare, unattainable exotica. Let's meet the finalists.

Our lowest-priced entrants are the remarkably agile and neutral Honda Civic Si ($21,885) and the aggressive factory-tuner hot-hatch Mazdaspeed3 GT ($24,550). The bulldog Mini Cooper S John Cooper Works GP ($31,150) and the Mitsubishi Evolution IX MR ($37,424) test cars are both 2006 models because their successors weren't yet available, and we couldn't bear to let either of these two staff favorites sit out the competition. Honda's sleek, sure-footed, and high-strung S2000 served as our entry-level rear-driver at $34,845, followed by the sublimely intuitive new BMW 335i coupe (Sport package, hold the Active Steering, for $42,995). Porsche's polished and impeccably balanced Cayman S and Lotus's uncivilized, supercharged Exige S served as our mid-engine entrants, priced at $63,300 and $65,100, respectively. At the top of the class are Chevy's lightweight fire-breather, the Corvette Z06 ($70K) and Porsche's race car for the street, the purist's naturally aspirated rear-drive 911 GT3 ($115,700). For the record, the almost-affordable Ferrari F430 was eliminated because the GT3 outperforms it in all our standard handling tests-for $60,000 less.

All cars were tested in factory-spec condition on their original-equipment tires. Some will suggest we should've shod them all in identical rubber to eliminate tires as a variable, but a manufacturer's choice of tire is such an integral element of the chassis design, that swapping tires would muddy the results as much as setting all suspensions to the same alignment specifications. Tire pressures were adjusted to the factory settings for all evaluations except racetrack hot-lapping, for which all were increased by 5 psi.

So how does one define exemplary handling? Lay persons in the auto-scribbling business often dodge the question, essentially paraphrasing Justice Potter Stewart's Ohio obscenity-case commentary stating that they "know it when they feel it," and proffering a few test-track numbers as backup. But this exercise demands more rigor. The numbers that magazines typically generate on skidpads, slalom courses, lane changes, and even our figure eight quantify only a few constituent elements of vehicle dynamics like cornering, directional response, and transitional behavior. The broader term, "handling," encompasses myriad other vehicle qualities, many of which provide the driver feedback that helps maintain control and enhances the enjoyment of the experience.

These other elements are trickier to quantify, but, with some electronic doodads and a whole lot of ingenuity, many can be measured. Others can only be articulated qualitatively. To cover the spectrum of analysis as thoroughly as possible, we rented the vast airstrips at the retired El Toro National Guard base in Orange County, California, and put all 10 cars through an intense regimen of special test procedures conceived to tease out as much objective handling data as possible. We then drove hours north to Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, where we again instrumented the cars and sent them out with professional race driver Max Angelelli, who knows the track well enough to bring each car up to its full potential within a handful of laps and whose experience testing and tuning cars enables him to articulate a car's dynamic strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we put our own experienced editorial staff in the drivers' seats for hours of comparative driving on hilly, twisty, Central California wine-country roads and solicited their feedback.

In all three venues, the qualities we're seeking to evaluate include: