Auto News 5

Ok, you've got the money. These are incredibly cool and beautiful. But what could you do with a hard-driven car without a speedometer, heater, insulation, bumpers, or soundproofing in Manhattan? Get real!" That was rational me, talking to myself in 1967. Tucked under a ramp at Garage Mon Repos in Lausanne, Switzerland, were two several-year-old Ferrari 250GTO coupes, either one $3500 -- my choice. I passed, dismissing owning one as preposterous. Twenty-odd years later, the better-looking but harder-used of the pair brought more than $15 million from a Japanese collector. Some years after, I told that story at dinner on the Riviera. The man across from me, Jean Guichet, said, "You can't imagine how happy I am to hear that. That was my car, and my wife made me sell it -- for $4500! -- if I wanted to buy another racing car." Guichet had a lot of success with GTOs, including finishing second overall at Le Mans in one of his two personal examples, and he did quite well racing three others, but he took particular pleasure learning that the man who bought a GTO from him for "almost nothing" sold it for even less.

The Kia Forte is a perfectly competent, quite acceptable small sedan, and if your heart is set on buying one, by all means do so. But first check out the competition, especially the Mazda 3, the Ford Focus, and the Hyundai Elantra. Each of those cars is more attractive, more refined, and more fuel-efficient than the Forte sedan, yet no more expensive than the Kia.