Seconding the call for maintenance records. Lotsa cheap BMW and Merc's out there with $5-10K in deferred work. My pal with the BMW specialist shop could always tell a new owner of an older one, with their responses of, "It's gonna cost HOW MUCH??" ... View more

150 kph, right? Just checking. I'm a gen II owner since new. They didn't do 150 MPH stock, though close enough to surprise the heck out of most, and accelerate nicely in the upper ranges due to high RPM tuning and decent aero for the day. The magazine tests all showed vMax ~143. Not having autobahnen around here, I haven't done a WFO test but have closed on 140 a couple of times on lonely highways. As far as the values, I have warned my new insurance agent that if it got totalled I would NOT be accepting any lowball valuations. They are slowly rising, and when I last checked the average values were $6-8K and climbing for pretty nice, with the occasional well-maintained low mileage over 10. ... View more

Interesting. I have always read, multiple places, that the SHO got its motor for the 1989 model because the motor had been designed and built for the GN34 which was then cancelled. ... View more

The SHO was one of the fastest sedans in the world. 220HP out of 3.0, just a dozen or two behind the 5.0 V8, and one of the higher specific outputs (per liter) available at the time; I think the Ferrari V6 was a little higher. Bob Bondurant said that on the track it was as fast as that year's Mustang GT. ... View more

The Honda one was remarkable. I remember a few of the others, never saw the Mustang/McQueen. I remember one, pretty sure it was for the re-launch of the 300ZX (?) that had a high-booted motorcycle cop looking at the car, then imagining it blasting through corners at high speed. At the end the owner walks up as the cop is writing a ticket. "What's that for?!!" "YOU know." Z owner thinks for a second, then hangs his head and nods, accepts ticket without further protest. ... View more

Great article, thanks. I attended a Trials event some years ago and was delighted/astonished at what the riders could do. It wasn't a no-stops type event; there was one spot that was basically a dead-end that nearly /required/ a stop and hop turn. But the boulder face that seemed nearly ten feet high and nearly vertical was the best. One of them figured out how to hit the smaller rock in front of it just right and that gave the right launch angle, then skittered right up it AND stopped at the top still on the pegs. The others basically said,"Oh, OK, that works" and most of them duplicated the feat. I don't think I could have climbed up that one with OR without a bike.... ... View more

It's not exactly the same target demo, but for $1700 more you're into a base STI. That gains you ~40 HP, a more rear view intrusive wing, and loses you ~4 MPG and some refinement. You make the call. ... View more

Well, FWIW Bob Bondurant used to give a site tour to the students in a Ford van, I can't remember if it was 14 or 17 passenger but it was huge.  When he got to the track, he said, "And here's where you will be doing laps!", put the hammer down, and took a lap at (as far as we could tell) full bore.  Because we had a big group, there were other students following in the instructors' SHOs.  They told us that the van's inside front tire looked like it was a foot off of the ground coming out of the corners!  😲   Bob was shuffling the big wheel and looked back at us and called, "Haven't rolled one yet!"  My brother and I agreed that it was like that when you're a world-class driver. Of course, he had a garage right across the lot, and if the van had a mechanical problem he wasn't stuck towing/carrying tools across the country.  So maybe not /exactly/ the same as racing the support vehicle.... ... View more