Isn't it obvious who won?
Bringing together the best of the best handling cars from various price classes and axeing those with exorbitant price tags to keep things relevant for those of us in the peanut gallery, Motor Trend came up with a list of 32 contenders for the title of Best Handling Car in the World. After a vigorous battery of road tests, they narrowed it down to just 10: the Honda Civic Si, Mazdaspeed3, Mini Cooper S with the John Cooper Works package, Mitsubishi Evolution IX MR (both from 2006 as the 2007 versions haven't hit the pavement yet), the Honda S2000, BMW 335i, Porsche Cayman S, Lotus Exige S, Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and Porsche 911 GT3.
The folks at Motor Trend feverishly tracked on-center feel, skid-pad testing, step-steer, lane-change/swerve stability and ride quality, using gadgets to measure results precisely and not allowing looks, reputation or even emotion get in the way of their final verdict. It's perhaps the most thorough and objective comparison test we've ever seen performed, and as such, it offers a lot of data for the reader to digest. Almost too much, actually, as evident by the graph at the article's conclusion that tries to encapsulate every bit of data for each car in a siezure inducing spider graph (shown above).
Which car won the battle? We don't want to ruin it for you, so click through to find out. [Hint: the winner can be found on page 8 if you're like us and hate surprises]
[Source: Motor Trend]
