When they first came out there was a tiny picture in a dealer's ad in the local fishwrap. I fell in love with the cross between a Bugatti Atlanta Coupe and a Bill Thomas Cheetah from that little photo.

A couple of months later my Eclipse was fatally shortened by a woman talking on her cell phone and turning left in front of me. I called my local Mitsubishi dealer looking to buy a replacement Eclipse but he never got back to me. In the meantime the kid I work with brought in a Rod &Truck magazine with road tests of current sports cars which mentioned that the Crossfire cornered better than a Porsche Boxster.

That did it.