2005 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged vs. 2005 Dodge SRT4

The sun SHINES brightly off the white stone buildings, a smooth and lightly traveled road winds along granite cliffs that jut from a glassy Mediterranean. We stop for a photograph of the Dodge SRT4. Click. Minutes later we're plunging down through the corkscrew at California's Laguna Seca circuit, closing on a remarkably well-driven Nissan Primera 2.0 that looks about as out of place here as the Dodge did in Italy.

Of course, it's all as imaginary as SpongeBob's sex life. Our assignment is to evaluate America's latest weapons in the hot-rod econobox wars, but Sony's new video game, Gran Turismo 4, is distracting us. Everything in the game looks real, and the vehicle dynamics are tailored to match track tests of real cars. Drivers in GT4 start with limited funds (just like in real life) to buy a cheap car that can win purse money to spend tuning it for better performance or trading up.

Naturally, the only selling features that count on these digital cars are low price, high performance, and the broad availability of aftermarket parts to further improve performance--the same factors that motivate sales in the real-life sport-compact segment, vastly outweighing traditional concerns like refinement, ride harshness, resale value, or anything else Consumer Reports treasures.

In 2002, two Americans crashed the Asian-dominated rice-rocket party: the Dodge Neon American Club Racer (ACR) and the Ford SVT Focus (both became digitized for Gran Turismo 2). Since then, Dodge has steadily upped the ante, swapping the ACR monogram for SRT4 and jumping from 150 to 215 horsepower in 2003 courtesy of a 2.4-liter turbo. Last year, the SRT gang boosted output to 230 horses and 250 pound-feet and prescribed a Quaife limited-slip differential like Nicorette for tire smoking. Still not hot enough? Visit Mopar for further over-the-counter upgrades (see sidebar).

Ford's SVT group is on hiatus, so the fastest Focus is sidelined for 2005, but Chevy hopes to fill the void with its svelte and swift Cobalt SS Supercharged. Bolting a Roots-type blower onto the light, free-revving 2.0-liter Ecotec four-cylinder adds 60 horses and 45 pound-feet, and another Quaife diff endeavors to keep both front tires spinning and tugging in unison. Tweaks to the steering, brakes, and suspension reveal the potential of the stout Delta platform that first appeared under the milquetoast Saturn Ion. But wait a minute--the Cobalt is a no-show on GT4's list of 700 digital cars. Curses!