Top 10 Performance Cars of 2009

The need for speed afflicts many people; however, two distinct camps can be discerned - these include those who simply want to drive a performance vehicle, direct from the factory and those who want to modify their vehicle, to make it reflect their personality and their own sense of style and speed.  However, to be a truly great performance vehicle, the car must offer quite a bit. Total horsepower and a fast quarter-mile time are nice, but they are far from the only criteria when selecting an all-around performer.

Handling and braking performance, suspension performance, torque application, engine operation and much more must be a seamless whole.  In short, all the disparate systems within the vehicle must be designed to provide amazing performance, at the drop of a hat.

Our rankings are never based on pure speed only.  We take into account the entire picture, all the different systems within a "performance" vehicle that must work in tandem for an exhilarating experience.  The vehicles included in our Top 10 list range from the blindingly fast to the perfect blend of performance and handling.  Of course, we imposed no price cap, but you will find no SUVs on our list.  Their very nature makes them unacceptable in this arena.

You'll find only 10 cars on our list of top performance vehicles.  Each vehicle was chosen based on several different aspects.  While were the top considerations, others included , included and those available and the of the vehicle.  Most of the vehicles on this list can be used as your daily driver, but you'll also find a few on the exotic side that simply begged to be included for various reasons.

Pure speed was used as our top consideration.  In general, vehicles with faster 0 - 60 times are better in other areas, as well.  The drive system is another important consideration, because it affects handling, as well as speed through hard cornering; for instance, all-wheel drive systems are often faster than other configurations.  Polish and finish, along with reliability, helped to introduce vehicles that were as solid as they were fast. 

As a note, you will not find limited edition vehicles of any type or quarter-million dollar supercars within this list, simply because they are not readily available for the average driver en masse.