The April '09 issue of Car & Driver had the cover story of four best-buy sport coupes. The dominant winner in the last two SCCA National Championships came in last place. The Pontiac Solstice GXP was the car to race in the SCCA Runoffs for 2007 and 2008 in the SCCA T2 class. In this story, it was last against the Mazda RX-8, BMW 135i and the new Nissan 370Z.
What is the SCCA? The Sports Car Club of America. Founded in 1944, now with 114 regions in the US, virtually everyone considering competitive racing at a "grassroots" level has looked into or participated in the SCCA. Some new cars have been sold from the factory with 1-year memberships!
In the Runoffs, the Solstice GXP had multiple podium finishes, beating other notables such as the Nissan 350Z, BMW E46 M3 (the 333hp 6cyl model), Mitsubishi Evolution, Subaru STi, Cadillac CTS-V, Pontiac Firebird and GTO and the Chevrolet Camaro. For the most part these cars are significantly faster than the Solstice in a straight line. The popularity of these cars dictates better and more in-depth coverage.
Now granted the new 370Z, the first place pick, is pretty tough competition. Maybe the best sportscar buy for the money. But there was a key element mentioned but not expanded upon. A $650 dealer-installed package that adds 40 horsepower. An absolute bargain! Was this the key to the SCCA domination? Surely this should have been researched. And if two of the four cars in this test make over 300 horsepower, wouldn't be fair to test the Pontiac with this option? And by the way, horsepower upgrades like this from the dealer with the factory blessing, are very, very rare. Especially a 40hp jump which is significant for virtually any car, let alone one weighing 3080lbs.
Another absolutely key element completely missed was publishing the lap times. There was mention of lapping at Willow Springs, but oddly, no results given. This is one of the most elemental pieces of data for a test of cars such as this. A big error of omission without explanation. After all, they evaluated the cars for five days.
Road & Track recently reported the 370Z experiencing high oil temperatures after 4 laps and needing a cool-down. If this is due to a design flaw, not only is it absurd for the best new sports car value, but it should have been reported by Car & Driver if noticed! Edit: Car and Driver notoriously discovered a severely braking cooling problem....
Granted the ranking of the cars was warranted by the disclosed test data. Digging deeper, is the SCCA T2 two-time dominator allowed to have a horsepower upgrade that makes the rest of the field impotent? Should the car be demoted to the slower SCCA T3 class? Investigative journalism was severely lacking when covering sports cars like these.
In the Runoffs, the Solstice GXP had multiple podium finishes, beating other notables such as the Nissan 350Z, BMW E46 M3 (the 333hp 6cyl model), Mitsubishi Evolution, Subaru STi, Cadillac CTS-V, Pontiac Firebird and GTO and the Chevrolet Camaro. For the most part these cars are significantly faster than the Solstice in a straight line. The popularity of these cars dictates better and more in-depth coverage.
Now granted the new 370Z, the first place pick, is pretty tough competition. Maybe the best sportscar buy for the money. But there was a key element mentioned but not expanded upon. A $650 dealer-installed package that adds 40 horsepower. An absolute bargain! Was this the key to the SCCA domination? Surely this should have been researched. And if two of the four cars in this test make over 300 horsepower, wouldn't be fair to test the Pontiac with this option? And by the way, horsepower upgrades like this from the dealer with the factory blessing, are very, very rare. Especially a 40hp jump which is significant for virtually any car, let alone one weighing 3080lbs.
Another absolutely key element completely missed was publishing the lap times. There was mention of lapping at Willow Springs, but oddly, no results given. This is one of the most elemental pieces of data for a test of cars such as this. A big error of omission without explanation. After all, they evaluated the cars for five days.
Road & Track recently reported the 370Z experiencing high oil temperatures after 4 laps and needing a cool-down. If this is due to a design flaw, not only is it absurd for the best new sports car value, but it should have been reported by Car & Driver if noticed! Edit: Car and Driver notoriously discovered a severely braking cooling problem....
Granted the ranking of the cars was warranted by the disclosed test data. Digging deeper, is the SCCA T2 two-time dominator allowed to have a horsepower upgrade that makes the rest of the field impotent? Should the car be demoted to the slower SCCA T3 class? Investigative journalism was severely lacking when covering sports cars like these.
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