If you're a regular reader of AAA Oklahoma's car reviews, you may have noticed that the reviews come from two different writers: me and Jim Prueter. While the method we use for deciding who gets to drive what is mostly arbitrary, the choice of reviewer for the Crossfire was made out of necessity. At 5'4", I fit quite nicely into the roadster. Lucky for me, at 6'6" Jim could either get his upper body or his legs into the car, not both.

So, I ended up with the Crossfire. Introduced for the 2004 model year in a coupe version only, 2005 brings the coupe and roadster, both available in a "Limited" trim level, as well as the performance-oriented SRT-6 coupe. The roadster comes equipped with a 215-horsepower V-6 and is only available with a six-speed manual transmission.

It's fast, but not impressively so, and agile despite somewhat imprecise steering. With the top up, there is significant road noise and rear visibility is extremely limited. The hard-topped coupe most likely won't have the noise problem, but visibility will still be an issue. The roadster is meant to be driven top-down, drawing admiring stares. For this kind of cruising, Crossfire is a winner.

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