What car have you driven that exceeded your expectation?

HappyAndy wrote: Lincoln LS V8

Yep. When I was in my teens, my dad and I were out east in New Brunswick for about a month. We rented a car at one point for a week, they ran out of economy cars for us to rent due to overbooking so we got one of these instead.

My god did that 3.9L love to rev (and it would cruise along in 5th at 150km/h no problem). It was a lot of fun. Thirsty, but still an interesting car from Ford at the time. It was so good my father was looking at buying one.

And my love for the Suzuki Swift knows no bounds. Even though it wouldn't be classified as handling better than a Civic, it feels more nimble due to the fact that without stripping weight, it weighs a good couple hundred pounds less (and the 1.3L DOHC GTi makes the same power-ish as a 86-91 Si).

Oh, and I'll add the 1992-1995 Honda civic sedan. What an enjoyable ride! Typical honda engine/transmission goodness, but the additional wheelbase (or maybe just the added overhang out back?) really seems to calm down chassis movement during daily driving. Handles like a dream, rides nicer than the hatches ever seem to, and much easier to get into and out of with 4 people (and the trunk is quite large).

curtis73 wrote: 01 BMW 740 iL Sport. I don't know how they combined such agility with such a soft ride in such a huge car.

This.

2001 hummer h1...i bought it in 2002 wrecked with 9k miles on it. it was the 4 door pickup with the 6.5L engine. after 6 months of putting it back together and driving it for 6 months and putting another 10k miles on it. i loved it i would have kept it longer but someone wanted it worse than me and paid for it. until you spend a lot of time behind the wheel of one of these beast you wont understand. the faces of children when you pull up with it is really priceless. they were rated at 13mpg city and 17 highway it was more like 5 and 10. you had to pick what drive thrus you were going to use because most you couldnt make the turns and stay within the curbs. you parked it out in the middle at the shopping malls. as long as the trails were wide it would go anywhere and push small trees over if you found yourself in a tight area.

My Ford Probe GT car at the $2004 Challenge. I had taken it for a not all that aggressive test drive and concluded it seemed solid enough, but pretty appliance-like. The first time I drove it in anger, though - it proved to be very competent, needing only some sticky tires and less pressure in the rear than the front to be a very neutral, grippy corner carver.

2001 Elantra. I drove one to do short town deliveries when it was my bosses demo at the time. I was expecting a complete and utter pile of poo. I was pleasantly suprise. I was so suprised that we bought a new '02 that following April.

My dad bought a cheap automatic '96ish Neon for commuting a few years ago. I only got to drive it a couple of times, but I realllllllly enjoyed it. So simple, quick and nimble.

Spitfire. I was expecting it to be a case of don't meet your heros but I loved it.

The Scirocco MK2. It is an absolutely blast to drive. Same with MINI S.

EG and EK Civics. Fun to drive and reliable as gravity.

Also the new Jeep JK. I expected it to suck to drive on the road but it didn't.

Most cars have been pretty much exactly as I expected them to be. After owning and driving so many cars, I tend to have a pretty good idea of what a car is going to be like and why long before I ever drive them. But two cars have impressed me enough on the test drive that I ended up buying them based on that impression. The PT Cruiser Touring edition with 5 speed manual didn't have to be anywhere near as good as it was to be a good value, but that 5 speed made all the difference. Like night and day. Almost 4 seconds faster to 60 than the automatic, held speed going up hills without hunting for a gear, and just made it fun to toss around and autocross. After 5 years and 70k miles it was still one of the best all around cars I've ever had. Out of 120+ cars, that's saying something.

The second was my Volt. I expected it to be an EV. I did not expect it to be fun to drive, and so good at being a car. It's solid, fairly luxurious, and quite useful.

Mazda 2---- Expected it to be boring econocrap, turns out it has perfect pedal placement, a good shifter, and it will even rotate under cornering--- a lot of fun in a very inexpensive package, kind of like a Mk1 GTI

Boss 302 (2013)--- Sure the Mustang is too big, but damn the Boss 302 is a great car. I'd take one over a new M3 even if money was no object. Mind blowingly better than the already good GT.

1.6 Miata--- Gotta love a car that begs you to thrash it. I fell in love the first time I drove one......I'm still in love with the simplicity, honesty, and focus.

I like driving anything usually. it kind of has to be realllly terrible for me to complain.

Like our company car (~05 camry). makes me cringe and die a little bit inside.

I've purchased (or had my wife purchase) three new cars in my life. All were as a direct result of us getting press cars that impressed me enough to spread my wallet. Mazda 5, Mazdaspeed 3, and the Chevy Volt.

I'll also throw in a plug for all modern VWs. Reliability issues and the general feeling of not-ready-for-primetime has cooled me to new VWs in general. But all of the ones I've driven recently are exceptional dynamic vehicles. Sort of that way that every BMW used to feel like a "driver's" car. VW seems to have captured that magic somehow lately.

jg

1984 Mercury Marquis (aka LTD II).

Maybe I just didn't know much, but I liked this car a lot. Even with the automatic. The 3.8 V6 moved it along pretty well (though I never did manage to get a wrench on the #1 spark plug). I harbored daydreams of a 302/T5 swap, but the car was really a tangent at a time I really couldn't afford multiple projects. If I found an LTD II wagon in decent shape for cheap, I'd be hard pressed not to do it.

Not to oversell it. It's an extra-long Fox chassis, so it's not like it's probably actually good, but I really enjoyed driving it in the twisties around my old town.

I sort of expected to hate Mrs. Oldtin's 928, but it's comfy all day, will cruise along without worry or drama at ridiculous speeds. Still looks like a space ship even though it's almost 30 years old and people come out of the woodwork to talk to you about it. It still scares me a little with bank-breaking potential, but it's been rock solid reliable.

EVO IX MR was another one. I liked the STI a lot, and figured I'd hate the EVO with it's ultra-twitchy steering and peaky motor with little low-end torque. I absolutely loved everything about the car, the steering was perfect, the motor had solid low-end torque, and it would spin to 7K and actually seemed to enjoy it (as opposed to an STI that's done by 4500 RPM).

If they didn't hold their value so well I'd own one.

Mazda 3: I first got a ride in one back in 2004-05. I was surprised at how it handled and how nice it was inside. Fast forward to 2011, and my wife bought a 2010 i Touring. Even with the smaller engine, it was really fun to drive. I liked it so much I bought myself a '12 S Touring hatch.

My favorite part of the car is how well it handles. The car really takes corners well with great steering feel, even with the terrible stock tires. It's light on it's feet and loves to be pushed to the limit. I really want to get it out to an autocross at some point to see how it stacks up to more expensive "performance" cars.

yes, the 3.8 5spd F-body was a good deal. The real trick was to get the Y87 3800 performance pkg option. Basically gave you Z28 suspension, 4 wheel disc brakes (96-97, standard 98+) and LSD for the bargain price of around $400.

I drove and passengerd quite a bit in a girlfriends Fiat X-19 and it was delightful- 70hp or whatever, but it was and absolutely wonderful car to experience driving down a two lane country road in.

A rental automatic 'new' Beetle. I thoroughly expected to hate everything about it. It turns out I only hated everything except the automatic transmissions 'manual' mode. I did not realize that it would lock the torque converter to act more like an actual manual (or DCT) at anything over 1200-1500 rpm...Even at full throttle from there all the way to redline. I was very pleasantly surprised by this one engineering feature, enough so that it actually highlighted the lack of this as the biggest shortcoming on our automatic Fit Sport.

95 base Corolla - eco sedan with manual everything, including gear selector. A few little mods and that thing woke up bigtime! It was no Porsche killer, but it would surprise you everytime you wanted to have some fun!

924 Porsche. If you forget that it's a sorry excuse for a Porsche and appreciate it for being a tight, flingable, if underpowered car there's very good times to be had there.

Miata. Looking at them it's hard to take them seriously, and purely from a specification standpoint - ho hum. But they're better than the sum of their parts, and faster than they have any right to be.

76 BMW 2002- Handled so well in the mountains, even with 100 hp it was memorable

89 Montero 4x4 3.0 V6- Really capable offroad stock

12 Jetta TDI daily, bought it hoping for 40 mpg on the highway and I can hit 50

91 Galant VR4, I modified it a lot over 6 years but that first quarter mile pass with Advan A032s and a PTE 50 trim....1.7 60's and a whole lot of fun.

My All-Trac sedan.... yeah... I can't explain it... but with bilsteins on the dampening duties, and Project Mu pads, and shoes... I have all the confidence in the world in "Grunt"

Another ford probe gt. I bought it as a parts car for a monstrosity i am throwing together, and immediately regretted having to cut it up. Comfy seats, working cruise control, and the torquey 2.2turbo made it a fantastic commuter. Even with the 320,000kms it had. One of the best $500 cars ever.

I've driven a lot of cars and a good number of them on a race track but... I usually expect something like an Elise or a C6 to be awesome and so don't qualify as "exceeding" my expectations even if they are absurdly good at something.

I once owned a 4 cyl Nissan Hardbody with a stick shift, extended cab and rubber flooring. It was zippy on twisty roads, super-capable in off-road stuff (even if I was not and got it stuck in a few silly places) and could haul so much crap in excess of it's stated capacity that it was just amazing. I drove it across the scales at the dump once with 2200lbs of tar paper and shingles in the bed. I loved that stupid little truckette.

Kia Soul Sport. Yeah, really. Not a powerhouse by any stretch but a pretty snappy handler for a box. Well screwed together, comfortable at 80 mph+ and just funky enough to be fun without having to be penalized for it.

Jeff