Touring vs. Touring & Sport

awesomez

In my opinion if you do not have a car with LSD your whole car is limping. Not the whole time, only when it matters.
When I was test driving a Z, a mustang cobra happened to come in front of me. Because I was testing the car appropriately, the driver in mustang assumed I wanted to race so he floored it. He started getting some serious fishtailing, Z on the other hand after being floored made a slight noice from the tires (with VDC on) and in matter of seconds cobra was just sitting in my way.
Yes LSD is not necessary 90% of the time to me but it doesn't bother me that its there during those 90% of the time. I don't even care that it's there. But the 10% that you don't have it will bother you if you have any sense of driving.

jginnane

Yes ... life is a series of compromises. I wouldn't be getting the 7AT, otherwise. But once you get on the far side of 50, you think of little things like "What if I'm not here to drive the Z? Who would?" So ...

For me this is as a highway cruiser primarily, and would even downgrade the standard 18" Yokohama Advans to All-Seasons. (UHPAS, not Grand Touring treads, at least :-) And I expect to have to replace OEM rims, depending on who drives the car and where.

In the 70s, I lived up in the snow belt (Rochester NY) and had really crappy cars -- a 68 Chevelle, a 70 Mustang, a 73 Nova, a 78 Grand LeMans -- to learn to drive with. The Mustang needed 400 pounds of weight in the trunk just to be able to move on the snow and ice. Bias-ply tires were a considerable improvement over "4-ply nylon", but some years we didn't even have that. (And since the rubber didn't last too long, you could count on using your spare with some frequency -- regardless of the season.)

I don't want a car that does TOO much for me, or makes it easy/tempting to drive in a way my reflexes may not be up to any more. The Sports package is like taking an extra dessert on the buffet line -- it seems "free", but there are hidden costs you WILL pay.