This class features an interesting mix of hard-core performance models and more luxurious touring convertibles. Our Best Buys give you a little of both worlds. Chevrolet Corvette is fast, comfortable, and reasonably affordable, but it doesn't beat you up with a hard ride, and it will cruise quietly at highway speeds. Our other Best Buy, Mazda Miata, is a bare-bones roadster with few frills at a great price. For weekend fun on a twisty back road, it's hard to beat.

A Recommended selection, Honda S2000 offers up all the performance and thrills of a traditional sports car without the intimidating price tag. Audi's TT is solid, stylish, and loaded with features making it fit for the Recommended list as well. Like no other in its class, TT offers the all-weather advantage of available quattro AWD at a great price. New this year is the Nissan 350Z. It offers heart-stopping performance and civility at a very reasonable price. After additional tests we may well move this vehicle to a Best Buy.

Porsche isn't finished with variations on the current 996-series 911, as one source expects Turbo and Carrera 4S convertibles to be added soon. The upcoming GT3 is basically a GT2 with more power and less weight, virtually a track-ready race car.

Racier still is the Carrera GT, a sleek mid-engine 2-seat roadster expected later this year with a cool $400,000 price. Only 1500 will ever be built. At least half should be sold in the U.S. A true "exoticar," the GT is built by hand with an advanced carbon-fiber body/chassis, ceramic brakes, and a new 5.7-liter naturally aspirated V10. Packing no less than 612 hp, the GT does 0-60 mph in about 3.8 seconds and hit 205 mph, according to Porsche. A sophisticated suspension with 19-inch front wheels and 20s in back promises ultra-high cornering ability. We hear quite a few moneyed buyers have already put down deposits.

The Carrera GT will be sourced from the same Leipzig factory as Porsche's new Cayenne SUV. So will a larger-than-911 coupe being whispered for sometime in 2006. Now known only as "E2," it's said to be about the same size as Porsche's late 928 coupe and to follow the same front-engine/rear-drive format with rear-mounted transmission. Power will come from one or more of the Cayenne V8s. Styling will likely be "big 911." In its day, the 928, which had a unique V8, was often criticized for being "un-Porsche"--and unreliable. Name? No one knows yet, but we'll bet on 989, which references an earlier, aborted project for a V8 Porsche sedan.

The 911s continue selling remarkably well for specialized, high-priced sports cars, especially in today's jumpy market. Deliveries exceeded 10,000 for the second straight year in 2002. The AWD Carrera 4s jumped 27.1 percent to just pip the rear-drive models, which fell 8.7 percent for the period. Convertibles again outsold coupe models.