Drawing Board: Lightweight RWD sedan

Imagine this but with two more doors and a fixed roof...

We haven't done one of these in a while, so lets take this opportunity in this new year and pontificate about a car that currently does not exist on the market.

From 2007 until 2012, my wife and I were proud owners of a hand-me-down 1999 Mazda Miata. It was a special edition car made in limited quantities and packed with lots of performance goodies like the then new 6-speed manual transmission and a limited slip differential between the rear wheels. The car was an absolute hoot to drive thanks to a curb weight of just 2,350 pounds. Its raw and tossable nature always made me wonder why Mazda never attempted to translate the chassis into other vehicles to add to the line-up. Just imagine what a treat it would be to have a light weight compact four-door sedan that offered all of the fun of the Miata, but significantly more practicality.

So that got me thinking, what would such a car really look like?

Old vs New: Light Weight RWD Sports Cars (2007 Honda S2000 vs. 2013 Subaru BRZ)

With the recent introduction of the Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S twins, it would seem that lightweight, rear drive sports cars are making a bit of a come back. What better way to find out if the Subaru/Scion duo did it right by comparing it to another light weight, rear drive sports car? Luckily, I am the proud owner of a slightly older light weight, rear drive sports car, the Honda S2000.

The goal here is not to determine which car is faster, as that would not be a fair fight considering my car out powers the BRZ by a fairly significant amount. My goal in doing this comparison is to find out if Subaru got the lightweight, rear drive formula correct, and to see which of these two cars are more fun to drive.

VS