Letters.(Letter to the Editor)

Tuner times

The "Tuned for Speed'' section (AW, May 19) is sweet. I have been a longtime reader of AutoWeek and I have to say "Tuned for Speed'' is Tuned for Me. Please open up the doors and start writing more about the tuner market for sport compacts.

John W. Begg Jr., via e-mail

Thank you for covering a tuner that is working on aftermarket Tiburon parts, but puuleeeze, to call the Tiburon a Korean Mustang is an insult to Hyundai. I had the misfortune of renting a 2002 V6 Mustang ragtop for seven days, and trust me, that car is lousy. Please reconsider what you compare a Tiburon to. I have a 2003 V6 Tiburon, which I have driven 7500 very enjoyable miles, and no, I'm not in the normal demographic for this car. I am a 42-year-old who tested all kinds of cars before buying the Tiburon. This car is by far the most bang for the buck.

Ted McFadden, via e-mail

Kevin Wilson's early days of automotive tuning reminded me of my own, except that I had a much slimmer budget than Wilson did. One of my first cars, in the 1970s, was a 1962 Plymouth Fury. Early- '60s Mopars had two bolts on the front end that could be twisted to lower it, which rendered the front shocks useless- something I noticed early and often on the old brick streets and railroad crossings in Wichita, Kansas. The second modification I made was far more exotic. I bought an "Orange Peeler'' muffler for $35. I didn't have the proper tools to remove the stock muffler so my friends and I spent an entire afternoon taking turns hack-sawing it off. We then rammed the Orange Peeler onto the pipe with no hardware whatsoever, using just a wire clothes hanger to hold it up. That it had a pushbutton automatic on the dash took nothing away from its performance prowess. I had the meanest, hair-trigger left index finger on Douglas Street, where it displayed its fine tuning in the street-race wars of its generation.

K.J. Crawley, via e-mail