The current Honda Prelude has been around for a few years but it has plenty of power, excellent road manners, and gets reasonable fuel economy. If Prelude is a little too expensive, take a look at our other Best Buy the Volkswagen New Beetle. It offers interesting styling and a nice mix of comfort, performance, and economy.

If raw performance is what you are after we Recommend the Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang, and Pontiac Firebird. Not as pleasant to live with on a daily basis, these cars offer a lot of bang for your buck. New last year, the fun-to-drive Toyota Celica also earns the Recommended nod with its reputation for reliability.

It's true: Camaro dies after the 2002-model run, the victim of steady sales declines and years of being trumped by the rival Ford Mustang. The same fate awaits Pontiac's related Firebird. Before the axe falls, look for a limited-edition farewell Camaro, perhaps with full-bore Corvette power. Ironically, Camaro did slightly better business in calendar 2000 as sales inched up some 3 percent from '99. Still, the total was only some 42,000, too little for GM accountants to justify continuing the Chevy ponycar, let alone approving an overdue redesign.

Some insiders still talk of the Camaro name being brought back for a very different vehicle. The most oft-mentioned candidate is the sporty retro-cool coupe/pickup, inspired by the show-stopping SSR concept, that's being planned for 2003. A nice thought, but it doesn't make sense to us, given Camaro's history, though Chevy brand managers may think otherwise.