FYI, next weeks edition of Autocar, is running its annual, "BRITAINS BEST HANDLING CAR 2003" test. 32 cars with one surprising winner! The RX8 is included in the test.

Eyes peeled.

AnilS.

Bah no spoiler tags

Should be interesting to see who has paid the most and wins ! ;)

Originally posted by morganrogers
Should be interesting to see who has paid the most and wins ! ;)

Wahey, someone (else) who knows the real score :)

You'll all be suprised... and it wont be by who hands over the most cash....I thnk...

I'm slowly starting to believe that money does make the world go round! Whats the odds that Mazda have thrown a sackful of money and upped the BHP on the test car ? Chance would be a fine thing.

Probably the Focus RS.

Autocar love the RS whereas most car mags and journo's have found it fundementally flawed.

As we all know Autocar critiscise the RX8 when most other mags have praised it and given it top marks.

This probably disproves the bribe theory as they are both Ford owned cars. Maybe they are just idiots? :D

To be honest, the magazines don't care if ultimately Ford own or control Mazda, all they see are two different brands of car.

I can honistly say the winner isnt bought by cash (so long as its the car I think it is).

Its a 12 year old car after all....

Originally posted by RobDickinson
I can honistly say the winner isnt bought by cash (so long as its the car I think it is).

Its a 12 year old car after all....


oooh......you tease :D

Originally posted by RobDickinson
I can honistly say the winner isnt bought by cash (so long as its the car I think it is).

Its a 12 year old car after all....


What? they've got an RX-7 in the test?? How cool is that!!!

Originally posted by Jon H


What? they've got an RX-7 in the test?? How cool is that!!!

Can you believe I actually thought the EXACT same thing ? :D

NSX ?

Its 12 years old , but you can still buy a new one....

Lotus Esprit ? (thats probably older than 12 years and didn't they stop production recently due to the lack of renualt boxes)

I read something on an MX5 forum last week saying that the MX5 won some Autocar poll of polls - best car or something.

So I'm guessing its the MX5.

yes but the NB MX5 was released in 2000 ... so its only 3 years old.

and i'm sure i've seen G plate old style 5's, so that's '89, 14 years old.

you can't buy one of those new though can you

So,

Who's gonna post a scan of the article then?

Whoevers going to scan the article, will have to wait until the 26th Aug when its out. My opinion, its not going to be a supercar that wins it.


AnilS.

Tried to pick up a copy this morning (6:30 am) but to early for the newsagents to see what had come in. Has anyone managed to pick up a copy ?


AnilS.

MX5 won, but the 8 did not fair well. Talks of too much body roll, and not enough power. Will post the snippits of review later, unless someone can scan it sooner. :mad:

AnilS.

I thought we had already dismissed Autocar because they didn;t know their a*** from their elbow ?

Are we now taking notice of their opinions again ?

I cant keep up !

Well, I have to agree that the mx-5 would win it for me, since I've owned 3 (as '5s or eunos') over the past 5/6 years!
Don't worry about the '8. They'll soon change their mind when the public vote with their wallets.

The thing is, it's an apples and oranges comparison anyway.

How can they compare the MX5 to the RX8 and complain that the RX8 lacks power when it's clearly more powerful than any 5?

I haven't read the article and don't plan to, but it seems like they're struggling to do proper comparative work and are simply judging each car as they see it.
I wouldn't expect a balanced piece from them and it appears I wouldn't have received one had I chosen to pick up a copy.

I had a quick flick through the mag at the petrol station this morning, and i believe that the Porsche GT3 actually won, not the MX5.

The brief part i managed to find relating to the RX-8 was something to the effect:

'the RX-8 was easily the most beguiling car of the day, soft suspension should have ruled it out, but it handled superb, had a sweet chassis, and was fast'. (NOT BY ANY MEANS WORD FOR WORD!)

It did say that it was only let down by a lack of torque. But to get the best out of the car you needed to rev the tits of it, brake late and trust the superb chasis. The lap time was kind of dissapointing next to the competition, i think the mx-5 was just as quick if not quicker.

They had a fairly wide selection of drivers/reviewers for the cars, 6 in all, so it SHOULD be an impartial review.

Alright, I havent seen the article (how could I ? I'm in Bruxelles :D), but so far I'm guessing there is a RX8, a MX5 and a GT3 in there, right ?

So, the GT3 should have blown the competition away (judging by lap times), while the MX5 and the RX8 are very close (again, in lap times). But, since you can buy about 15 MX5s for the price of one GT3, I'm also guessing that this is why the MX5 won....

The RX8 is claimed to be "lacking in power", because it needs to be above 4K all the time in order to be competitive, but so is the GT3. However the GT3 produces odles of power down low (compared to the MX5 or the RX8), so it has the edge there as well).

So, cannt say I'm surprised by this outcome. If the test had an Elise or a Speedster (or even a S2K), then these would easily win (based on the criteria that I mentioned). Its only logical.......

Not sure, but I think the test covered a lot of cars, and for some reason the MX5 won, ove anything else.

Price/performance I guess, although I dont see how it can beat an Elise?

Originally posted by RobDickinson
Not sure, but I think the test covered a lot of cars, and for some reason the MX5 won, ove anything else.

Price/performance I guess, although I dont see how it can beat an Elise?

So there was an Elise in there ? Remember, I havent seen the article, I'm only guestimating here.....;)

lol, - I'm only guessing too, I thought the MX5 won, but aparently not...

Its odd what a track will through up though - juts look at TopGears track times, with the mix of cars, prices and times they get there.

they had about 20 cars!

TVR 350, Pagani Zonda, Lambo, Caterham, Elise, RS Focus, Clio Sport, all sorts.

They were broken down into category (price+power) and the Z4 won the category that the 8 was in i think. MX-5 won it's category though. Zonda was the fastest i think, 1min 2 secs (RX8 around 1min 29, Z4 1 min 26).

I unfortunately do not possess a photographic memory, so apologise for any errors!

someone post a scan!

Have Just read it. Can you believe they put it into a group of 2 seater track cars? eg Caterham, Elise, VX. Ok not all track rockets, the MX5 and Z4 were in it too. Not exactly a fair comparison.
To be fair their write-up wasnt too bad, and time-wise it beat the 206Gti 180, The S60R, and got very close to the Clio V6!
Anyway, didnt buy it, not worth £2.50-odd for a comic you can read in 2 minutes.

JH

Why is this such a dead thread?

Just because the 8 was rather embrassing in the shoot out??

Come guys, let face the music, whether it's good or bad.

The test was put into diff categories, hatches, super and sports.

The 8 was in the sports which faces a lot of fierce competitions. I'm quite sad to see that the 8 was doing the worst lap time, as compared to half the cars which had less hp than the 8 itself.

Kudos to MX5, they have done it yet again.

I thought it was quite a dissapointing review - although I only ficked through it this morning at the garage. I don't think it shows the RX8 in its best light at all.