I just got mine and I had never seen one before I saw mine. Sure I had seen pictures but not the real thing. It was the obvious love of the car on this forum that led me to search out one. I found it 1400 miles away and bought it over the internet with only pictures.
After getting in home last week I posted on another club forum with some pictures and one lady posted back "Cute" My response was, "NO, not cute, Bad ***."
Today that statement was confirmed. I had the exterminator in to do some work and he asked me which car I was going to take out as he had parked in a way to block two of the three cars. I asked which one I could get out. He said, "The Bad *** one."
Awesome yes, "bad ***," no. In fact, many think of it as a chick's car, and one does see a lot of them driven by women. I'm a man, but, lucky for me, I don't get hung-up on these things (not that I would drive a pink car, or a 2nd gen Beetle).
The exterminator used the term, because when he parked in front of two cars, one was a Turbocharged Sky RedLine Roadster but he obviously felt the SC-430 was more bad *** than the Sky. I used the term because the top speed of an SC-430 is 178 mph (governor disabled), far eclipsing the 151mph of the Sky. Of course at just over 3 seconds to 60 mph the roadster is faster off the line.