It doesn't surprise me that a lot of folks on here have taken a liking and may be considering the Camaro, Mustang, or Challenger. If you think about it, the import affordable sports car segment is pretty much dead right now so that doesn't leave much else to pick from and I know rotary fans are at the end of their rope waiting for concrete news about the 16x and the car it will be going into, but honestly for anyone with an earlier RX-8 (mainly '04-06') who may be in the market for something new, you can't blame them for bailing on Mazda.

 

I think you may be reading too deep into a discussion primarily about 2 cars that have been each others prime competition for many years. There may be a few people that are planning on buying one of these vehicles but this topic IMO is just a "which do you like better" conversatin not "which are you going to buy". It might be hard for anyone to call me a true car enthusiast if I have a dislike for Ford but a car enthusiast (on an average income) doesn't necessarily just like one type of car. I think a lot of the people answering the question at hand are simply enthusiast and may not be in the market for a new car just yet. I personally am in the land of BMW, Audi, and Mercedes...I've seen where I can get a good deal on BMWs and Audis so my liking one of the topics cars in no way says I am limited to them. A 335i with some suspension work maybe a tune on the engine...hmmm!

 

While I agree that it's becoming much more justified for people to look at these cars, I don't think your reasoning holds validity, especially if a buyer is willing to look at used cars.

Ignoring the V6 versions, you'll find that you can get cars like the evo or sti for a fairly close price as the camaro or mustang. If you look at used cars you have a quite a selection. The 370 is also not out of the picture.

The problem with the camaro, challenger and mustang is that you still wont get a comparable car in terms of handling/feel as the 8. It will accelerate great and handle well enough to still be enjoyable and competitive, but it's not going to be a good replacement if that's what you really want. Those cars would be great if you're willing to make the sacrifice on handling and are looking for more power.

 

Very true. The mustang, camaro and challenger all need to lose some weight and that would help them handle a lot better. They do handle pretty well especially considering how much they weigh, but would handle loads better if they lost weight, especially the camaro and challenger.

 

I think a lot of folks that are considering other cars are more than willing to sacrafice a little handling for more power and better mpg. Face it, you won't find anything that handles and has that glove-like feeling like the 8 in a similar price range (except maybe the MX-5), so basically all you can do is give up a little of that for more power. Frankly, the Mustang 5.0 is the only other (affordable) car that has any appeal to me besides the 8 right now.