Let me tell you a story. Three friends each bought brand-new (to them) cars in 2005. One traded in a pickup truck for a Buick Regal when gasoline went over $2.00 a gallon and he panicked about fuel economy. One decided to treat himself after fourteen months in a war zone by buying a second-hand C5 Corvette. The third decided to go for broke and bought, brand new, a Chevrolet Cobalt SS, one of the supercharged coupes. The Corvette was made fun of because whoever designed the aftermarket exhaust on the car successfully made an LS1 sound like a tugboat working in the docks. The Regal was made fun of because it was a low-end golf club special from tip to tail, complete with a name-brand designer endorsement everywhere on the car. And the Cobalt SS was ripped on because it was a front-wheel-drive pocket rocket that, like every Neon SRT-4 and Civic Si and Sentra SE-R nearby, was a wrong-wheel-drive atrocity.
The truth: my Regal was a golf-club sleeper that earned a bit of coin during it’s years trolling Tacoma. The Corvette is legendary for a quick blast up the road on a weekend shopping trip. And that Cobalt stood good chance of cleaning the clocks of both of those cars in a 1/8th mile race without a doubt…it was a stout little thing. The engine was good. And it overcame front-drive issues like those Neons and Sentras and yes, even that Regal. There are ways to haul sincere ass using front wheel drive. Look at this particular Cobalt for inspiration…big-boy power out of four cylinders, making it happen on the front wheels.
