I first thought about buying one back in late 1991. I was only interested in cars that looked cool (still unchanged today) and the 2nd generation RX-7 seemed to be the ideal one for me (of course!). (I was also interested in bikes, but that's another story.) It turns out that Mazda had just introduced the 3rd generation RX-7. Well, the price had jumped considerably and I basically didn't have the cash to buy it.
A salesperson at one dealership told me that the second generation, also known as FC3S, could still be purchased in the cabriolet version. (Mazda was ending its production around March of 1992.) As most of you know, that would still have bumped up the price tag. Little did I know then that despite the end of its production, a few already finished non-cabriolets certainly could have been found at dealerships scattered throughout Japan. Well, so much for that.
My next choice was Skyline GTS-t Type M (HCR32), by Nissan. The infamous GT-R (R32) that was resurrected as part of the same lineup was pricewise out of the question. The Type M was a 2-liter inline-6 with a turbo. It was dubbed 'little GT-R.' One major difference was that the GT-R was all wheel drive and the Type M was the conventional and maybe 'correct' rear-wheel drive. Do note that there was also a GTS-4 which was the 4-wheel drive version with the 2-liter engine. I can't remember if GTS-4 had a turbo on it. The major difference between these and the GT-R was that the latter was a turbo (or two?) on a 2.6 liter inline-6 engine.
At the time, even though Nissan dealers were cool enough to offer reasonable discounts on 'usual' cars, they weren't about to do the same with the Type M. They knew folks who couldn't afford a GT-R would settle for the milder versions. It's understandable, but then look at what happened to the manufacturer since then. It's now part of Renault. Their designs are funky and 'avantgarde,' but do not look like Japanese cars anymore. That's the down side. The good side is that Nissan doesn't need to be as compulsive about how to match Toyota's competing product as they used to. They spread themselves too thin during the economic decline (not past, still going strong!) starting at the early 90's.
I had to pass all of the above and settle for a 1992 Toyota Corolla 2-door coupe (AE101), called a Levin, which had 5 valves per cylinder (engine name 4A-GE). FYI, AE101 was the 2nd generation after the last rear-drive Corolla, which is the now-famous AE86. The 1st front-drive Corolla was the AE92. Anyway, it was supposed to be 'better' than the 4-valve per cylinder version because the intake valve area was slightly larger than the latter's. The intake and output valve were not the same size and design, but 3 valves worth was clearly significant over 2 valve's worth. It was a front-drive, and a fairly zippy car and fun to rev up to 7000rpm. But I wonder whatever happened to Toyota's 5-valve projects since then. I think it was one experiment they offered folks who were willing to fork out the extra cash for that 'hidden difference.' There was also a supercharged version but I wasn't about to spend that much for a front-drive.