So power to weight ratio, like raw horsepower and peak torque, engine displacement, etc. is only one facet of the car. I tried looking up the E36 for you, but to be honest, BMW's and Mercede's numbering convention confuses me to no end, so I don't even know if I'd pick the right model if I tried. If you know though, here's where I'm getting my numbers.

The '96 Mazda Miata had a 0-60 of 8.6 seconds and a quarter mile of 16.4 seconds. The '96 Mustang GT had a 0-60 of 6.7 seconds and a quarter mile of 15.1 seconds. The Mister Two Turbo had a 0-60 of 6.1 seconds and a quarter mile of 14.7 seconds. It spanked the crap out of both of them. The MR2 was also in a much higher price bracket and had a damn near suicidal snap oversteer. The thing is raw numbers only tell half the story. Those 0-60 and quarter mile times are just as dependent on suspension setups and geering ratios as they are raw horsepower and torque. Each car drives completely different. That's good. That's amazing. That's the spice of life. That's a huge reason why I love cars.

When you actually compare Mustangs to other cars in their price point, they have features that make them competetive. They really do. If I were to compare an '85 Fox Body with cars near their price range, I'd probably favor it over the Camaro and the Firebird for the body styling alone. Four eyed Fox Bodies are sexy. But I wouldn't just be comparing it to Camaros and Firebirds, I'd also compare it against the Toyota Celica and favor the Mustang for the horsepower of the engine. I'd compare it to the MR2 and once again favor the Mustang for the price. I'd compare it to the RX7 and figure that I probably couldn't afford the RX7 either. I'd also compare it to the Dodge Charger and Daytona and know that Chrylser's cars at the time were a bit of a joke so I'd say “No thanks. I wish I could afford that Conquest though.” I'd also compare it with the Monte Carlo SS and Chevrolet El Camino. Hell, if I was lucky enough to know what the Mk II GTI was back then, I'd even compare it to that, because back then VW at least somewhat had their act together. All of those cars I listed? They have their pluses and their minuses, their gives and their takes, and I would be happy to have any one of those cars.

We could obviously do the same thing with the mid '90s cars, swapping out some models for others, but you get the general idea. Let's talk about my personal experience car hunting. Let's fast forward about 20 years though and go to me in 2012, test driving cars left and right and why the Ford Mustang GT was my second choice. I test drove, over the course of 2 years, almost 30 new and used cars searching for the one, before I pulled the trigger on my FR-S. I'll make a short list of some of the modern cars I drove . . .

Dodge Challenger R/T – Pros Looks great. Sounds great. Drives nice and smooth on the interstate. Cons Handles like a boat. Felt massive. Cost way too much. Chrysler has horrible reliability.

Chevrolet Camaro - Pros Sounds great. Lots of power. Cons Looks boring outside and in. Car felt claustrophobic.

VW GTI - Pros Interior was nice. Peppy as fuck. Small and unassuming. Cons Expensive. Questionable reliability. The VW scene is kind of full of not so nice people sometimes.

Hyundai Veloster - Pros It looks pretty cool. Cons Pretty much everything else. It was really disapointing.

At this point, you get the idea. By the end, it came down to the Mazda Miata, the FR-S, and the Ford Mustang GT. I pretty much nixed the Miata for the fact that it was a convertible, even though I loved the car. The Mustang? Looked great. Sounded AMAZING. Drove relatively smoothly. It has a cache to the nameplate. It was a relatively nice car. On the downside, it didn't handle nearly as well as the Miata or the FR-S and it actually felt like it had too much power.

When I test drove the FR-S though, it was pretty much immediate love. The interior is small in a way that feels snug without feeling claustrophobic. It handles turns amazing well. It looks absolutely gorgeous from certain angles (though paradoxically, from some angles it looks kind of plain). It's great on gas. It's just a nice, fun car. It does have its flaws though. The paint is thin as fuck and at this point, my paint is all but jacked up. The interior is kind of cheap and chintsy. It's so low to the ground, even stock, that sometimes I do have problems with really steep drive ways. People will ask me with a straight face why I didn't get a Mustang or WRX instead. Seriously. In all honesty, it came down to an emotional coin flip. There are some days where I wake up in the morning, get in my car, and wish I had gone with the Mustang instead. It really is a nice car for its price point, power, handling, and all.

The thing about the cheap plastic though? Whether we're talking my car or the Mustang or the Camaro or the WRX, I don't think that in and of itself is a fair complaint. All of the money for these cars are paying for the drive train, the suspension, the stuff that makes these cars performance cars. Compared to cars like Fortes, Civics, Cruzes, and such, they're actually pretty passable. When kleinbl00 was joking about the tupperware fantastic interior of the Corvette, that's a bit more of a valid criticism, just because of the Corvette's price point. People will compare Corvettes to the car offerings of companies such as Porsche and Jaguar. The thing is though, the people who want Corvettes aren't the kind of people who want Porsches and Jaguars. They're more often than not, blue collar Americans. Know what they demand? Reliability over a hundred thousand miles and reasonable service prices. Guess what the Corvette has that Porsche and Jaguar don't?