Best Handling car on the market (in stock form)

[scheides]

Lead in from the other thread.

http://www.dsmstyle.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10846

Funny that two top contenders in this little handeling debate are the s2000 and the evo. I think this shows that both are top in their class. I think it shows that while coming from different angles of attack, both of these cars are serious contenders in stock or near-stock form, and even give cars 4x their value a run for their money.

I've got two great examples, both form http://www.nsxfiles.com

Doug Hayashi (owner of nsxfiles) owns a an all-out race-only supercharged NSX. He has two DD's, and one backup DD: A F355, an S2000, and an MR2. This guy obviously has it bad for mid-engined rwd cars (and, he lives in Huntington Beach, CA, go figure!), and he will tell you countless stories about the swarms of S2000 he races with that take top numbers on track days. See www.nsxfiles.com Chapter 93 for more specific examples.

Another example, his buddy Wayne owns a F360. He loves this car, and uses a Porsche 944 turbo for his track car....or used to. He bought an evo not long ago, and actually is quoted as saying MULTIPLE times that it outhandles his Modded F360. Seriously, a $30k evo outhandling a $160k+ Ferrari.

[scheides]

This is your garage, what do you take to work?

[TheBlizzard]

I have driven an EVO and was pretty impressed with its OVERALL driving. But if you are just talking about handling and not power and handling then the nod would have to go with the S2000. Its a smaller car, sits lower to the ground and doesn't hardly have enough torque to spin the tires in corners (jk).

The EVO platform has way way way more potential to make power though, since the aftermarket is huge for them. Its all about what you want out of a vehicle. The only disapointment I would see in a S2000 is not having any room and not having much power, but shifting at 9k+ would be cool.

[Super Bleeder!!]

there are several S2ks making well over 500whp on the stock engine/tranny, deep into the 10s. the cars are so dissimilar, apples to oranges here. i like them both

[Talian]

Originally Posted by scheides

This is your garage, what do you take to work?

None, they would all get wrecked by the inconsiderate people who insist on parking ridiculously close to me in an empty lot.
I could only imagine the feeling of opening the garage and seeing that

[CDeutsch]

Craig has a good point. The s2000 "may" handle better (I'm not saying it does or doesn't), but it's hard to compare since it doesn't have the same power as an Evo. The Evo performs better. If you don't beleive me try the NASA Time Trials car classifier (which starts you off with your car in stock form):
http://nasa-tt.com/TT_Classer

Classes are ranked in this order:
TTU - Unlimited
TTA
TTB
TTC
TTD
etc...

Stock rankings:
Regular Evo VIII = TTC
Evo VIII MR/RS and Evo IX = TTB
S2000 = TTD

I'd more like to address the misconseption that AWD isn't known for dry pavement performance. It's banned from almost every racing league so it's hard to come up with data. But in the competitions where it's still allowed AWD is usually an advantage (many series have banned or penalized AWD because it's an advantage). How else can an Evo place so high in events like One Lap of America? Make it RWD or FWD and it wouldn't even come close.

[scheides]

Excellent point Chris. Remember the Group B AWD rally cars? They were insane, and could almost keep up with F1 laptimes on pavement. AWD is definitly an advantage, but often the performance hit people associate with it is due to the increased weight associated with an awd drivetrain.

[ABV]

Where I live (in the real world) I don't drive on a race track every day. Even if I did, chances are I would never be able to extract all of the performance that either of these cars are able to dish out. Bottom line, is that either one of these cars, or any one from a long list of available cars, are freakin' awesome. Drive whatever puts a smile on your face.

That being said, I would take one of those bikes. It's nice out today.

[Kracka]

For non-exotics, you really can't beat the handling of a Lotus Elise/Extige.

I love my S2k and couldn't be happier with the car I chose, but I know its weaknesses and drawbacks, every car has them. Yeah, I'll get smoked in a race with an anything but stock EVO/STi/DSM/etc., but when you look at its direct competitors: Miata, Solstice/Sky, Boxster, Z3/4, 350Z, its a very competitive car. Hell, it just beat out the new Z4M (and every other roadster) in the Autoweek "Which roadster do you want to drive?" online poll by a huge margin. I hate comparing EVO's and S2k's, besides for aprox. price range, they are totally different in every way. I have a lot of respect for the EVO and would love to also own one sooner or later as a DD car.

[TurboDomestics]

Miata.

[A//// Guy]

M3? Actually the newer M5 is outragous at handling.

[Steeltwo]

the honda type r power Aero(sp?)
the elise and exsige(sp?)


all of which will beat pretty much anything no a handling course.