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Mazda's timing was perfect. In the late 1970s, British and Italian sports car makers were hanging by their fingernails, C3 Corvettes were aging ungracefully, Datsun's lovable Z-Car was evolving into the foppish 280ZX, and Porsche's 924 suffered from a hodgepodge of Volkswagen and Audi components. So the Mazda RX-7 that arrived in the spring of 1978 (as an early '79 model) was the answer to unspoken sports car dreams: it was attractive, fun to drive, and -- with a sticker as low as $6395 -- bargain priced. As a bonus, the RX-7 was powered by a rotary engine, which at the time was only one step down from a turbine as a source of wonder and amazement.

Between the basic Carrera and the wild GT2 RS, Porsche presently offers roughly 17 different versions of its legendary 911 sports car in North America. That figure, however, will soon jump to 19, as Porsche's rolling out its new 2011 911 Carrera GTS Coupe and Cabriolet at the 2010 Paris Motor Show later this month.

And then there were twenty. Days after crowding the new 2011 911 Carrera GTS into its portfolio, Porsche announced it has yet another 911 variant -- the 2011 911 Speedster -- debuting at the 2010 Paris Motor Show.