I drove 3 identical base coupes before I hand picked the one I bought.

I listened for little noises, high pitched whines, looked at paint quality, shift quality, etc. I tried to find the best out 3 otherwise identical cars.

 

The first Crossfire I drove, I saw at the Mercedes dealership while looking for a C230. It was an alabaster coupe, and when I took it above 55 the muffler came detached. With that initial impression I didn't want anything to do with Crossfires until I saw my coupe about 3 months later.

 

As many of you might know. I drive a truck for a living. It makes it very difficult to go car shopping. I was actually looking for a Jeep Liberty. At a local lot they had one. I drove it and quickly surmised that I while I like the looks OK, I hated the the thing after I actually drove one. On that same lot there was a black 2004 Limited Crossfire. I hadn't really paid much attention to these cars due to the high prices I assumed they were going for. I offhandedly mentioned the Crossfire to the dealer in a joking manner. He immediately went for the keys and a tag. I asked about the price and was very surprised that it was much, much cheaper than I assumed them to be. We took it for a drive and I fell for that car head over heels. It reminded me of past sports cars I owned. It felt like being inside a modern version of an Astin Martin DB-7 with the roof of a low wing Cessna. He pushed me to buy it right there of course, But I wanted to study the car a bit before plunking down any cash. I quickly found that I could easily expect to find one much cheaper so I passed on that car. I got on Cars.com and started looking in a 150 mile radios of home for a car. It turns out there were tons of them in my area. I found mine closer to the bottom of the list for a great price, close to home and with everything I wanted. Color, interior, options, mileage and condition were right in my ballpark. Gotta say, I love this little car. And to have the kind of support that this forum delivers has definitely added a lot of value as well. About the only regeret I have is that I can't find one that changes into all the other colors they came in.