Hey guys!

I always wondered what makes a sportscar, a sportscar?

How is it different from a muscle car?


Myc1972 (Buddy)

 

lighter , quicker ,more manuverable,less bruteish in appearance more fuel efficient and more fun.

 

My guess.......light, sleek body design, 2 seater, great cornering ability, very responsive handling..........Musle cars true to life ones are drag race kings, terrible cornering ability, heavy (4000 lbs +), seats more than 2 people, pure engine power (non-turbo)....again im speaking in general terms there obviously exceptions to every rule.

 

2 seat coupe = sports car.

 

The muscle car answer to anything is "drop a bigger engine with more displacement into it"

The sports car answer is "make it lighter, smaller, balance it, keep the engine light and add things like turbochargers or superchargers"

Think of muscle cars as "If it doesn't work, throw more power at it and drag race" and sports cars as "let's autocross "

Jon

 

Rolex Daytona 24 Hours vs Daytona 500.

 

I believe it's pretty much all said above, but I'd like to add this.
A sportscar is in general the way Europeans tend to like their faster cars. A musclecar is how americans like their faster cars.
Obviously, there are exceptions: some americans like to own a sportscar aswell, and some europeans like mussclecars.
I think the difference has been grown by the different situation. We, in europe, have plenty of twisting little roads. Being fast there means you'll need a light and small car, in order to have the needed handling. In the USA roads are more straight A-B connections, endless strips of concrete. This means going fast will be about powerfull, but also bigger/comfortable cars.
And of course the tax systems did their thing aswell: a car here will be way more expensive to own, so a small capacity engine makes more sense. Therefor we developed very high performance engines with turbo's, 4 valves/cilinder etc. In the USA with cheap fuel (compared to Europe that is) and low taxes, it was easier to ever increase the capacity. More cubic inches were easier to build then more sophistication.
That's the main reason there's not one real American sportscar, although the latest Corvette (smaller and lighter then previous ones) comes close. The Viper might be somewhere in between, but you can hardly call it small by any means.
All other US-sportscars were in fact European cars (GT40, Cobra...) with US engines.

 

I thought I might check the dictionary for some insight but the results were less than I desired. Here is what I found:

Dictionary.com

Sports Car -
An automobile equipped for racing, especially an aerodynamically shaped one-passenger or two-passenger vehicle having a low center of gravity and steering and suspension designed for precise control at high speeds.

Muscle Car -
A high-performance automobile, often with flashy, sporty styling.


www.m-w.com

Sports Car -
: a low small usually 2-passenger automobile designed for quick response, easy maneuverability, and high-speed driving

Muscle Car
: any of a group of American-made 2-door sports coupes with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving

 

I think that you could make a decent argument for the old Fiero to be an actual sportscar.

I do agree, though, that the Big Three tend to be good at putting together heavy sleds with big motors to pull them in a straight line, while the Brits basically gave birth to the sportscar with the Austins, MGs, and Triumphs. In America, though, I think the sportscar genre was nearly dead until our friends at Mazda brought us salvation in the form of the MX5 Miata.

 

Car & Driver refers to the RX-8 as "A genuine sports car that holds four adults. " I would have also said that a sports car must be a 2-door but again the R-8 is a 2+2-door. I guess a sportscar should be defined as a 2 or 2+2 seater with 2 or 2+2 door?

 

So I guess according to this a "European-made 2-door sports coupes with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving" would be a Super Car?

 

Purists would argue that any car with a roof is not a sports car...even a Miata would not pass the test, as the soft top is intended to be used regularly; not just in emergencies. This is because the very definition of "sports car" (the classical, not revisionist definition) is that it is a supremely impractical car used only for the "sport" of driving (i.e. driving as entertainment). These cars are not for commuting or going to the store. You dust them off once a week, drive out to the country and back, then put them away again. This is why English sports cars were never very reliable or comfortable or even powerful or good handling. They didn't need to get you to work or any other important place. Driving was a sport...a hobby with no mixed purposes. It has only been the demand for practicality that has redefined what we think of as a sports car. Now, it's a two door, two seat (somewhat impractical), great handling (more than "necessary"), powerful (again, to "excess") car compromised to be comfortable, reliable and economical. Those that bristle about the RX-8 being called a sports car should really undertand that it has been an evolving definition and that you can't argue it is not a sports car without ruling out pretty much every "sports car" remaining in the world, short of the Caterham/Lotus 7.

I still think of the term Sports Car as an ideal; not a label per se. The purest sports car is the one so impractial it will neve leave your driveway but you still sit in it and make vroom vroom noises. Everything else is a grade of impracticality, with the RX-8 representing the extreme fringe of what you could still consider a car built primarily for "fun" (i.e. the "sport" of driving recreationally).

 

The Fiero was an actual sports car, but much like the Cobra it was a British design. The Fiero is actually a Lotus with a Pontiac body and engine.

 

Actually it is all from insurance stand point, each car is given a rating by speed/handeling ect. It meets certain requirement and is classified...

A 91 300zx TT is actually classified as a "supercar" not a sportscar......

TAlk to your insurance agent he'll explain it all.. That is why a del sol is not a "sportscar" per say, it is 2 seater that doesn't make it a sports car, it is classified as a coupe....

 

Insurance only concerns itself with actuarial statistics and pigeonholing. Do you know why the El Camino (that ugly GM truck-style muscle car from the '70s) was created? Because, by the insurance definition, it was a "truck", not a car, so it was cheaper to insure. We still have this same kind of bullshit going on with insurance/government classifications. This is why people-hauling SUVs don't have to meet the same kind of safety requirements as cars...because they are "trucks". Of course, this happens all over the world, which is why all Porsches have vestigal back seats and the RX-7 in Japan had them as well (4 seats does not = sports car, so they are not taxed as such). On top of all this, we have marketing agendas that try to promote certain products as being something they are not. Anyway, just keep in mind that purist won't agree with insurance companies, governments or advertising agencies...nor always with each other.

 

Hmm... I don't agree. A Lotus Seven wasn't unreliable, and though not really comfortable, nor practical, it'll handle pretty good... A Caterham JPE, with 250hp was very powerfull (esp seeing it from a power to wheight ratio, after all it's not important how much hp you have if you keep gaining wheight) and fast, but also very sharp handling. 0-60mph in 3.6 sec is breathtaking, and modern ones are even faster.
Donkervoort, a Dutch Seven lookalike took it furter by smashing the laprecord for road legal cars on the Nurnburgring by FOURTEEN seconds. The record was then held by a Porsche Carrera GT (the V10 beast)
But plenty of British sportscars are quite reliable, powerfull, and have good handling. It's no wonder most chassis builders are located in the UK.
Because of high taxes on cars in the early years, UK fans started kitcars, as selfbuildcars were cheaper on taxes. That's part of the Lotus-succes, btw. These sportscars often were used as daily drivers, because the UK was probable the only country where sportscars weren't a richmen-only thing.

 

ahhh thanks for posting this, me and my friends had an arguement before about how the RX-7 isnt a sportscar because it doesnt have a massive amount of ponies...

 

Thanks for all your informative replies!

I knew that other people might be interested in this subject also.



Thank you!


Myc1972 (Buddy)

 

Maybe that's a definition the Brits used to justify or try to explain away their generally poor build quality and reliability. Which came first, the car or the definition?

There's never going to be a definitive definition of what a sports car is, or what a muscle car is or what a GT is. Heck, the line between car and truck is even blurred at times.

 

I think it's safe to say there is no horsepower upper or lower limit on a sports car.