I still remember the look my neighbor, a Marine colonel on Okinawa, shot me when I pulled up in a Raider. But eventually his whole family gave in and traded in their chevies for Mazda Proteges.

One more interesting fact about the Zero: For a long time, the U.S. Navy thought that the Japanese had more and more mobile carriers than they really did. That's because the pilots could feather the engine back to cruise and greatly extend the range when operating from land-based airfields.

The zeros real drawback was lack of armor plate for pilot, lack of self-sealing tanks, and no bouncy seat, I believe:).

The Zero constantly outflew all U.S. carrier based fighters until the Grumman F6F Hellcat arrived in '43; it could follow a Zero into a steep climb, come out of it without stalling and end up on the Zeros tail.

GT