1996 Chevrolet Camaro RS

When the fourth generation of Chevrolet's Camaro pony car debuted for the 1993 model year, it was pared down to just two models: the base Camaro with the 3.4L L32 V-6 and the performance Z28 boasting a 5.7L LT1 V-8, both in coupe and convertible form.

In 1996 the range was expanded to include the Camaro RS, slotted in between the base car and the Z28. While it had the same engine as the base Camaro, now GM's corporate 3800 V-6, making 200 SAE Net horsepower at 5200 RPM, it came with ground effects and an aggro-looking rear wing. Air conditioning and 16" alloy wheels were also standard on the RS.

In Motor Trend's testing, the car managed a 7.4 second 0-60 time... which would have been pretty typical of a 5.0L V-8 powered Third Generation IROC-Z, showing how quickly performance was returning to Detroit.

The Bright Red 1996 Chevrolet Camaro RS coupe in the photos was snapped in August of 2026 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and an M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens.

1996 Dodge Viper RT/10

For the 1996 model year, Dodge completely revamped its audacious V-10 powered Viper roadster. Despite having an entirely new frame and suspension underneath, the outsides looked broadly similar. 

The biggest external giveaway was the removal of the side pipes, which were replaced with a more conventional rear-exiting exhaust. Apparently the old exhaust setup ran afoul of both new European noise regulations as well as US OBD II requirements. The hood also featured a NACA duct style scoop fead center and exhaust vents on either side.

The car generally retained the rawness of the original, with a lack of fripperies like roll-up windows or external door handles.

Under the hood, the 488 cubic inch V-10 now produced 415 horsepower, which was enough to launch Car and Driver's test car to sixty in 4.1 seconds and blister the quarter mile in 12.6 seconds at 113 miles per hour. Top speed was measured at 173 miles per hour and it circled a skidpad at 0.97g.

As-tested price in 1996 was $66,045, which is about $135,500 in current money.

The Viper Red one in the photo was snapped in August of 2015 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000.

1996 Suzuki X-90

Suzuki's inexpensive Samurai, sold elsewhere around the world as the Jimny, was a big hit here in the '80s, basically establishing a beachhead for Suzuki in the US as something other than a motorcycle maker. It was joined in 1989 by the Sidekick, which was called the Vitara in other markets. A similarly jeep-like vehicle, it was slightly newer and more sophisticated and available in enclosed cab forms.

In the mid-Nineties the fun and funky Samurai was discontinued and replaced in Suzuki dealers lineups by the X-90.

The X-90 was an odd little enclosed two-seater that had cartoon-like styling, vaguely reminiscent of Honda's Del Sol. Based on Vitara/Sidekick mechanicals, it had a teeny 86.6" wheelbase. Since it was based on the Sidekick, it had a longitudinal four-cylinder up front with part-time four-wheel drive through a center transfer case. Rear wheel drive only versions were also available.

It had t-tops, a snug passenger compartment with minimal storage behind the seats, and a teeny trunk.

While the lines might have suggested "sporty car", they were writing checks the truckette powertrain couldn't cash. The alloy 1.6L SOHC 12V inline four only put out 95 SAE net horsepower.  

Car and Driver magazine tested a 1996 model with the five speed manual transmission and noted that, while the 4.63:1 final drive let it squirt to sixty in 10.8 seconds, it ran out of juice quickly. The quarter mile took 18.1 seconds at 74 miles per hour, and the car hit an aerodynamic wall at only 94mph. Of course, between the short wheelbase, 2500 pound curb weight, mediocre cornering grip, and fairly low ride height it always felt like it was going faster than it was.

Price for the test car, with options, came to $16,288, which is something like $32,750 in current money.

The X-90 was just too weird to live and was discontinued after the 1998 model year, with something like 7600 units sold over three years in the USA.

The Midnight Black example in the photo, which has been heavily modified for better off-road capability, was photographed in January of 2025 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens.

1996 Ford Mustang GT Convertible

The third year of the fourth generation of Ford Mustangs was a notable one. The 1996 model year saw the absence of the classic Windsor pushrod V-8 that, in one form or another, had always had a home under Mustang hoods ever since the start back in 1964. (Well, except for the cursed year of 1974, about which we do not speak.)

Instead of the classic 302cid "5.0" motor... which was actually 4.9 liters, but that doesn't look as cool on fender badges ...the '96 Mustang GT, like the Pacific Green convertible above, had a SOHC 2V version of Ford's new 4.6L Modular V8, rated at 215 SAE net horsepower. The power and torque outputs were pretty much the same as the 5.0L H.O. motor it replaced, but unavoidably came a few hundred RPM further along on the tachometer dial. The motor was also much smoother and helped improve the car's general NVH.

Performance was close enough that variations between individual cars were more likely to determine the outcome than whether the car was a '95 5.0 or a '96 4.6.

This one was photographed in December of 2023 using a Pentax Q7 and 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5 02 Standard Zoom lens.

1996 Jaguar XJS Convertible

A 1996 Jaguar XJS convertible in Signal Red.

The basic lines on this grand tourer were twenty years old by '96, with the car having been introduced as the XJ-S in 1975. The hyphen went away with the light styling refresh of 1991 that followed Jag's purchase by FoMoCo.

Like my '94 Mustang GT, this is a design that predates the Euro pedestrian-protection standards that went into effect around the turn of the millennium. As a result, the sixteen-inch wheels and tall sidewalls of the 55-series rubber look oddly quaint after a couple decades of grocery-getter sedans and secretarymobile sporty coupes flaunting 18+" rims and 45-series (or lower) rubber.

They sure make a lot more sense on the bomb-crater pavement of Indianapolis, though.

The owner flashing both the Leaper and Growler on the hood is a mite busy for my tastes, but it's his Barbie doll and he can dress it how he pleases.

This '96 is from the last model year for the XJS. I was personally a huge fan of them... it was my dream car as a young teen ...but the XK8 that replaced it was a lot closer in style to the revered E-Type.

It was photographed in September of 2023 using a Nikon 1 V1 and a 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2 lens.

1996 Buick Skylark Custom

Buick used the Skylark name on its midsize cars from 1964 through 1972. These were on the same GM A-body platform as the Chevrolet Chevelle and Oldsmobile Cutlass. After a brief hiatus, the nameplate returned on the smaller 1975 Skylark, which rode on the Chevy Nova/Pontiac Ventura X-body platform.

It made the jump to front-wheel drive in 1980 as the Buick flavor of the Chevy Citation and then spent the final years of the Eighties as an N-body compact, along with the Pontiac Grand Am and Olds Cutlass Calais.

For 1992, the fifth generation Skylark appeared, riding on a stretched and widened N-body. It had a weird sort of "beaked" chrome grille and came with either a SOHC version of the Olds Quad4 motor or the 3.3L GM corporate V6. The styling was weird and somewhat off-putting to Buick's normally stodgy buying demographic and so for 1996 it received a mid-cycle styling refresh with a more conventional snout, like the Bright White 1996-'98 Skylark Custom sedan in the picture above.

Available in two trim levels, Custom and Limited (the slow-selling Gran Sport got the ax), the refreshed Skylark had a more conventional dashboard, shared with its Olds Achieva stablemate, to match the more conventional nose. The base motor was now the 150bhp DOHC 2.3L balance shaft equipped GM corporate version of the Quad4, and either trim level could be had with a 160bhp GM 3100 pushrod V-6.

The Skylark name was retired after the 1998 model year, as was the entire idea of a compact sedan offering from Buick, unless you count the short-lived Verano model of the 2010s.

This one was photographed with a Fujifilm X-T2 and XF 16-80mm f/4 R WR OIS zoom lens in May of 2024.

1996 Toyota Tercel DX

The Toyota Tercel, which was the first front-drive offering from the Japanese automaker, hit our shores as a 1980 model, called the "Corolla Tercel". It slid under the existing rear-wheel drive Corolla as Toyota's new basic transportation module and sold for a base MSRP of $4,198.

This allowed the Corolla to be moved slightly upmarket and the Tercel, soon freed of its "Corolla" prenomen, continued for four more generations and nearly twenty years as Toyota's workhorse cheap car.

The one in the picture is a Tercel DX from the middle of its final generation, dubbed the L50, which was sold here from the 1995 through 1999 model years.

The base model still started at only $10,348 in 1996, with the better-optioned DX going for a little more. The DX gave you cosmetic niceties like body-colored bumpers as well as the option of a five-speed manual (base cars still used a four-speed). Under the hood was Toyota's 1.5L DOHC 5E-FE inline four, rated at 93 SAE net horsepower. Performance was adequate, with 0-60 times in the low tens; enough to keep up with traffic, but not a street racer's delight.

Durability was downright Toyota-like, as the nearly thirty year old Medium Red example in the photo illustrates. It was photographed in September of 2024 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and an M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens.

1996 Mercury Cougar XR7

The Mercury Cougar, over its 35-year run, was the Car of a Thousand Faces.

It started life in 1967 as a more highly-optioned, Euro-feeling Mercury alternative to the original pony car, Ford's Mustang. The Cougar and Mustang shared a platform and bloated right alongside each other until the 1974 model year, by which time the duo had reached almost Torino-esque proportions.

At that point the Mustang got shrunk back to something like its original small sporty coupe size while the Cougar leaned right in to the bloat, becoming a midsize "personal luxury coupe" that shared a chassis with the midsize Ford Torino and Mercury Montego. Now competing with the Olds Cutlass Supreme and Chevy Monte Carlo, the big cat from Mercury added plushness and, well, flab.

For the '77 model year the Cougar was moved to the same platform as the LTD II and Thunderbird. Now there were sedan and wagon versions offered, while the Cougar XR7 coupe was basically a Mercury-badged T-bird.

Downsized in 1980 to use the then-new Fox platform, the fifth generation of Cougar retained the sedan and station wagon versions (based on the Ford Granada) while the two-door XR7 remained a rebadged Thunderbird.

The '83 Cougar finally shed the brand-diluting sedans. It was now only offered as a coupe on the Fox platform, with all-new rounded lines, albeit with a roof-ectomy in order to give it a jarringly vertical "formal" rear window. This was to distinguish it from the cheaper, sportier Thunderbird and spendier, sportier Continental Mark VII, with whom it otherwise shared underpinnings.

The Cougar in the picture is from the penultimate iteration of the nameplate. Based on the new independent rear suspension MN12 platform, which it again shared with the T-bird and Lincoln Mark VIII, the Laser Red 1996 coupe in the photo would have either had the base 145bhp 3.8L pushrod Essex V6 or the 205bhp 4.6L SOHC Modular V8. This is identifiable as one of the last ones because in the 1996 model year they got a refresh that saw them sharing the entire Thunderbird front clip, differing only in the grille/bumper cover.

After the 1997 model year, the Cougar badge was moved to a little FWD hatchback coupe based on the European Ford Mondeo. It was something of a consolation prize for Mercury, as it was originally going to be the next Ford Probe, but Ford was axing all the coupes from its lineup other than the Mustang and Escort ones.

The Cougar was discontinued after the 2002 model year, followed nine years later by the rest of the Mercury division of FoMoCo.

The one in the photo was captured in November of 2023 with a Fujifilm X-T2 and XF 16-80mm f/4 R WR OIS zoom lens.