Mazda Protegé MP3

The story

Through the 1990s the Protegé handled far better than anyone noticed, because Mazda never gave it a hot version to wave around. The MP3 fixed that in 2001. Racing Beat firmed up the springs and anti-roll bars and added a stainless exhaust, blue Tokico struts went in, Racing Hart made exclusive 17-inch wheels, and a Kenwood stereo that read MP3 files from a home-burned CD gave the car its name. A small bump to 140 hp left it no faster than its rivals in a straight line, and Car and Driver needed 8.2 seconds to reach 60 mph.

In the bends it was another car. It pulled 0.85 g on the skidpad, and in a Road & Track shootout of affordable performance cars every rival beat it to 60 mph, yet it was quickest through the slalom and around Buttonwillow. The same magazine voted it into a best-handling test alongside a Porsche 911 Turbo, a Corvette Z06 and a Ferrari 360 Modena. Only 1,500 were built, most of them in Laser Blue, and the turbocharged Mazdaspeed Protegé followed in 2003.