[What would Sport Compact Car be without the people that helped make it? Many have done their part to make the magazine what it is today, and so we've tracked down and scammed each ex-Editor into providing some of the most prominent memories from their time at the helm. Unfortunately, we were unable to track down Alan Paradise and Brian Hatano, two men who oversaw the birth of SCC and then escaped on to different pastures. - JL]
Happy 20th anniversary Sport Compact Car. It's hard to fathom that nearly two decades has passed since Sport Compact Car first appeared on newsstands. And it was seven years ago, almost to the day that I wrote my final editorial in my column Shifting Gears for this publication.
When SCC's current editor-in-chief Joey Leh asked if I would write a guest editorial column to celebrate SCC's milestone in publishing, I dove into a big stack of dog-eared SCC's from years ago and began to reminisce. So, without further ado, this is my Top 10 list of my unforgettable moments from 1994 to 2001.
# 10 - We test drove a tricked-out 1992 Honda Prelude from DC Sports in 1994 and featured it on the cover in a story we called Canyon Commandos. This highly tuned VTEC-equipped Prelude would open the doors to a new age in compact-car performance and styling cues.
# 9 - While I fail to recall the exact date, early in 1995 we got shutdown from an automotive manufacturing PR guy, who insisted that compact-cars were a total waste of his time. He was later fired, and SCC went on to make publishing history.
# 8 - Staff editor Keith Buglewicz was covering a race in Bakersfield, Calif., when Honda Service Center technician, Darin Ishitani, ran the quarter-mile in a 1.6L CRX in 11.81 seconds at 116.74 mph. Darin's incredible blast rocked the import drag racing scene. The year was 1995.
# 7 - In the mid-90s, Dave Coleman walked into my office and announced that "we needed" to hire him. Dave's Techno Babble column would go on to attract a new legion of readers, inspired by his mind-numbing details of everything automotive and technical nerdisms that the rest of us couldn't understand.
# 6 - We called a staff meeting to discuss a new "car of the year" concept for determining performance. Eight Great Rides would go on to be our picks for the best and brightest compact-cars. It was the beginning of a solid relationship with the movers and shakers of the automotive manufacturing world. The year was 1997 and our results first appeared in the February 1998 issue.
# 5 - Adam Saruwatari of A&L Racing set a new import racing record in his RX-7 in 1997 with consecutive 9-second runs at the Battle of the Imports. Nitto Tire quickly became his primary sponsor. Adam went on to win $10,000 cash in a nationally televised event in Bakersfield called Detroit Versus The Imports.
# 4 - Staffers Dave Coleman and Josh Jacquot entered and finished the 1999 Michelin One Lap of America in a 1997 Subaru WRX Type RA. They did well enough in the standings and did it again a year later.
# 3 -Sport Compact Car established the Ultimate Street Car Challenge at California Speedway. Hung-Jen Hung was crowned the champion for the year 2000 after shredding the field in a '93 RX-7.
# 2 - Our fight for more manual transmissions and better engines in new cars continued as Acura announced they won't offer a manual transmission with the 3.2L VTEC CL. American Honda insisted it was only temporary. Meanwhile, Ford to Toyota began to offer high-performance, agile enthusiast models with immediate success.
# 1 - During one of my final trips to Japan in 2001, Nissan made an announcement to the press that the Skyline GT-R might make it to the U.S. We waited and waited, but nothing arrived. Unfortunately, it took Nissan seven more years to export the GT-R to America.
-Larry Saavedra
April 1994 - November 2001
Hmmmmmmmm. Would I rather be the editor of Sport Compact Car, or doused in gasoline, set ablaze and chucked off the roof of a very tall building? That's a tough one.