I believe that the Protege is the best compact economy sedan on the market (which is why I'm getting one soon) but I was just wondering who do you guys think is the protege's best competitor?

 

Style wise I think the Lancer and the Civic Coupe are the best. Quality wise the Civic and the Corolla. I know a lot of you don't like domestics but I think the Focus is the best overall competitor. In fact, if the exterior styling of the focus was more towards my taste I would probably be at a Focus forum right now.

 

the Civic is the most popular out of all of the other ones.........
that's for sure...............

 

The Civic is my second choice. It's a great car but it's lack of value really hurts it since it is in the "economy" car segment.

 

I would tend to agree and if you take care of the car it will last as long as a Honda. General car care goes a long way for longevity and reliability. My other choice was a Sentra...wanted the Spec V or 2001 SR20. They stopped making the SR20 for 2002 since the SER's were comming out. Damn I love my Protege 5....no other car packs the bang-for-buck and utility of it. Like the sedan a lot as well but love the utility of the Protege 5 plus I got mine for $15,400....

 

I know this about the lancer it's ugly and has an extreemly boaring interior. I looked at them b/f i bought my mp3. don't quote me but i believe it's got about 120hp thats in the us. However there is an evolition 7 in europe which i believe has over 200 horses comprable to the impreza wrx.

 

Yeah, the EVO is the only decent version of the Mistu Lancer .. hopefully they'll hurry it up as the Lancers they're introducing now are quite lacking for performance-hungry people.

I don't mind the styling of it it that much actually, I saw the Lancers at the Toronto Auto Show for the first time in person and they're smaller than I thought they would be .. they look so big and boxy on TV and in GranTurismo Too bad the O.Z. Rally edition only comes with 15" wheels.. they look so small.

 

Check out this site on new and old Lancers. Hope it helps out.

www.misubishi-motors.co.jp/PDF-E/evo7.pdf

 

What about the Matrix?

 

I would say get a plain focus and get TURBO for it or you can just get the SVT FOCUS with 170hp and get the turbo I think that it's like 9-10 psi then you can add a boost controller shzzzit that a nice import killer

 

The Protege and the Focus are the class of the "small car" field. It is kind of ironic that they come from the same organization, yet are completely different. If there was no Protege I'd be driving a Focus ZTS. I wouldn't mind an SVT but for 28K CDN they are rather pricey.