As usual it is horses for courses. Over the years, ignoring Minis from way back, I have owned a 1990 Astra GTE 16v (with a MBE throttle position based management system and extensive suspension mods), which over-lapped with a Corrado VR6 with Schrick cams and inlet plus AMD re-mapping, a couple of Prelude 2.2 V-Tecs(both in 1999 as company cars) with AWS and now the Trophy.
Memory tends to be a bit selective, but interestingly once modified the Astra was quicker than the Corrado, particularly at low rpm and was more predictable on the limit. The Corrado sounded superb and was more refined.
The first Prelude was an auto – with only four gears it was always falling off the cam. Fortunately the second was manual, with a higher change over point, but still possible to keep it on the boil. It was quick when using peak rpm, but otherwise quite gutless – really tiring to drive on a long journey. The turn-in and stability from the rear wheel steering was exceptional – quite surprised that they have discontinued it.
The Trophy is great fun and probably the best all round driver’s car. The chassis is very well sorted, although it does roll more than I expected. Probably the least comfortable in terms of ride, but not as noisy as I feared. The torque curve makes it very drivable, although I must admit that it is not as quick as I had hoped – speed trap times bear this out. Looks like an engine project over the winter.
The only other car that I would contemplate in this class would be the JDM Honda Integra R – 2.0 litre, 220 bhp and readily tunable. Comes with big brakes and LSD as standard.
Not my best car ever, which has to go to a Subaru Legacy B4, the JDM twin turbo version. Brilliantly sorted and refined, the only snag was that it was possible to fall into a flat spot when cornering at 4,000 rpm which was the change over point for the turbos. A bit too soft to be a track car, but every outing was a sheer delight – even found my wife doing over 100 mph down a motorway slip road in it!
Memory tends to be a bit selective, but interestingly once modified the Astra was quicker than the Corrado, particularly at low rpm and was more predictable on the limit. The Corrado sounded superb and was more refined.
The first Prelude was an auto – with only four gears it was always falling off the cam. Fortunately the second was manual, with a higher change over point, but still possible to keep it on the boil. It was quick when using peak rpm, but otherwise quite gutless – really tiring to drive on a long journey. The turn-in and stability from the rear wheel steering was exceptional – quite surprised that they have discontinued it.
The Trophy is great fun and probably the best all round driver’s car. The chassis is very well sorted, although it does roll more than I expected. Probably the least comfortable in terms of ride, but not as noisy as I feared. The torque curve makes it very drivable, although I must admit that it is not as quick as I had hoped – speed trap times bear this out. Looks like an engine project over the winter.
The only other car that I would contemplate in this class would be the JDM Honda Integra R – 2.0 litre, 220 bhp and readily tunable. Comes with big brakes and LSD as standard.
Not my best car ever, which has to go to a Subaru Legacy B4, the JDM twin turbo version. Brilliantly sorted and refined, the only snag was that it was possible to fall into a flat spot when cornering at 4,000 rpm which was the change over point for the turbos. A bit too soft to be a track car, but every outing was a sheer delight – even found my wife doing over 100 mph down a motorway slip road in it!
