QOTD: Stunning Nineties Sports Car Design From America?

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

We’ve had four different Questions of the Day focused on design over the past few months. Starting with good and bad Nineties design in general, we soon proceeded to the good and bad aspects of Nineties truck design.

Commenter theflyersfan feels we should have a discussion about Nineties sports car styling in particular. So here we are, setting off on a voyage for Nineties sports car bliss. America’s up first.

We’ll use the same three rules as we have in past for stylish submissions:

  1. All selections must be model years 1990 to 1999.
  2. Picks must be from an American manufacturer, even if sourced from an import (eg. Geo Storm).
  3. Any body style is eligible as long as it’s sporty.

My pick today is one that slides in under rule two above. Have a look at this extra sporty coupe.

It’s the Dodge Stealth, which was the downmarket cousin of the Mitsubishi 3000GT, née GTO in other markets. Introduced for model year 1991, the Stealth was mechanically identical to its Mitsubishi cousin, as was Chrysler SOP at the time. All Stealth and GTO examples hailed from Japan, the automaker’s answer to sports cars like the Mazda RX-7, Toyota Supra, and Nissan 300ZX. Unfortunately, Mitsubishi’s sports car response was rather poor when viewed against the competition. Built on the Diamante sedan platform, front-drive, transverse underpinnings were hidden well by a stylish body. The 3.0-liter engine was available in three Stealthy guises depending on trim. The base front-drive model had 164 horsepower (just buy a Sebring). An R/T Turbo model upped the ante to 222 hp, but big power numbers came from an R/T Turbo AWD model that offered an even 300 horses.

The Stealth did without the complicated active aero of the GTO, but did offer an electronic suspension and four-wheel steering. The original design was reworked for 1994, offering updated styling paired with a new six-speed manual transmission. All models were hefty pigs, but the R/T Turbo AWD was particularly portly at 3,796 pounds. Though the GTO lived on through 2000 (and was continually cost-cut), the Stealth was cancelled after the ’97 model year due to poor sales. Not the most obvious sports style choice, but it’s aged well and has a nice heckblende.

What’s your pick for an excellently aged American sports car from the Nineties?

[Images: General Motors, Chrysler]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

More by Corey Lewis

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 107 comments
  • Probert They already have hybrids, but these won't ever be them as they are built on the modular E-GMP skateboard.
  • Justin You guys still looking for that sportbak? I just saw one on the Facebook marketplace in Arizona
  • 28-Cars-Later I cannot remember what happens now, but there are whiteblocks in this period which develop a "tick" like sound which indicates they are toast (maybe head gasket?). Ten or so years ago I looked at an '03 or '04 S60 (I forget why) and I brought my Volvo indy along to tell me if it was worth my time - it ticked and that's when I learned this. This XC90 is probably worth about $300 as it sits, not kidding, and it will cost you conservatively $2500 for an engine swap (all the ones I see on car-part.com have north of 130K miles starting at $1,100 and that's not including freight to a shop, shop labor, other internals to do such as timing belt while engine out etc).
  • 28-Cars-Later Ford reported it lost $132,000 for each of its 10,000 electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024, according to CNN. The sales were down 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023 and would “drag down earnings for the company overall.”The losses include “hundreds of millions being spent on research and development of the next generation of EVs for Ford. Those investments are years away from paying off.” [if they ever are recouped] Ford is the only major carmaker breaking out EV numbers by themselves. But other marques likely suffer similar losses. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fords-120000-loss-vehicle-shows-california-ev-goals-are-impossible Given these facts, how did Tesla ever produce anything in volume let alone profit?
  • AZFelix Let's forego all of this dilly-dallying with autonomous cars and cut right to the chase and the only real solution.
Next