These days, performance cars and even regular cars from the 1990s are seeing a huge surge in popularity. Maybe you couldn’t afford a Chevrolet Corvette back in 1997 due to your allowance only being $20 a month, but now that they can be found for less than $20,000, odds are, it’s much more likely that you can afford the C5 of your dreams. Although, if I’m being honest, the C5 of your dreams should be a Z06, which is technically a car from the 2000s.
But just because automakers were doing some wild, fun stuff in the ‘90s doesn’t mean they were all winners. And I say that as someone who has a soft spot for a lot of ‘90s cars that were objectively bad at the time. Should you have bought a third-generation Ford Taurus? Probably not. But do I still appreciate the design risks that Ford took at the time? Hell yeah, I do. And then they stuffed a V8 in the third-gen SHO. How can I get mad at Ford about that even if it was auto-only?
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a least-favorite performance car from the ‘90s. Although I’m being a bit generous with the term “performance.” As the above image suggests, there’s always been an extra bit of hate in my heart for the Pontiac Sunfire. Have I ever driven a ‘90s Sunfire? No, I have not. But what’s much more important here is that back in the day, my younger brother loved the Sunfire, which meant I hated it.
That stupid dumb idiot had the audacity to develop his own opinions instead of just adopting mine even though I was the oldest, and it’s a grudge I’ve held against the Sunfire, especially the coupe, ever since. Maybe I’m being too hard on a car that was introduced with an optional 150-hp engine at the same time the Honda Civic Si only made 125 hp. But come on, Cameron. Really? A Sunfire?