My dream "sports cars/ supercars" are a Porsche GT3, or ZR1 (this week anyway).

Just making a point, a modded FD can give some impressive aka "expensive" 2005-2007 "sportscars/supercars" a good run.

Yes, "sports cars" is a better term. I looked at the top lb/hp model for each manufacturer in the database. That was my definition of a "supercar".

 

Im lucky, my dream car is my FD. Its how I can justify spending all that money on it during these awful times. Imagine how most people would feel with a carrera GT, thats how I feel about my FD. Supercar or not, its still my #1!

 

I love my FD, don't get me wrong, but it isn't on the same level as some of the true super cars. can it hurt some supercar butts? you bet, but when you park it at night, you're still driving what was once a 35k mazda, while the guy driving the ferrari, still has, a ferrari

 

A supercar excells in every department save cargo capacity :P. The FD is a great mass production chassis and a stellar power plant with a chinsy interior. They're great cars, have a better bang for the buck than most anything out there but a supercar they are not.

 

I believe that a "supercar" is a car that excels in the sophistication of the "go" part of the engineering. So, suspension, tranny, engine, and chassis are designed and built with more expensive and rare materials as well as engineered to be on the leading edge of performance. I wouldn't put a car in that list just because it goes fast. Like somebody said, a modified car can achieve those numbers and some tuners have accomplished such a status in the car market that their products (Ruf, for instance) can easily be considered in that area. So, I would not put a car in that list, for instance, if its power plant doesn't have outstanding hp/l numbers as there would be nothing super about that.
In other words, I feel that super refers to a combination of absolute numbers together with how extraordinary is the engineering feat necessary to accomplish those numbers.

If you take the engineering feat out, all you have is a tuner car made "in house" by a big manufacturer. Don't forget, every car can go that fast, the question is how you get there (it's about the journey, not the destination).

Our beloved FD3S "kind of" get into that realm in my opinion. Certainly they don't any longer, but if you look at it in the context it was introduced in, I think it will appear under a different light. A bit back I was reading one of those "high performance car shootout" in a magazine and I was stunned by the fact that the lateral acceleration they were able to generate under cornering wasn't better than the one the RX7 can generate dead stock.
Just enjoy your car, look how unique and beautiful it is....

 

I thought a Z06 was the cheapest super car? (well super car killer )

 

Well my definitons Sportscar= Rotary Power & Sound period, only reason why I brought my car.
Khris

 

Don't worry, your insurance company will let you know if you're driving a true "supercar"...

 

suuuuuuuuuupa car

 

You must mean the one on the left, because the white one is an RX7. lol

 

"Supercar" isn't about prestigious brands or luxury appointments, it is a performance benchmark, that to some extent takes into account the compromises needed to achieve it, since we're talking about street cars.

It's sort of like "State of the art". What it was yesterday isn't what it is today.

 

If they (Mazda) would produce the Furai, I would see that fitting into the SuperCar category. Not so much the FD or typically modded FD for that matter. Now if you take the FD to a tuner shop, ala RE Amemiya, Pettit, Scoot and get something insane from that, including improvements/upgraes to all areas performance/aero/interior, then I could see the modified/Tuner FD being a SuperCar, in the same sense I would look at a Hennesey, Veilside, TechArt, Gembala, Scoot one-off as a supercar.

~CYD

 

The FD is a "super car" because mobeoner said so.

 

I definitely agree with your points, and would expound on them by adding that exotic materials - in addition to the powertrain technology - for the car's production time are a must. Examples : 959, F50, McLaren, Enzo.

To me, all supercars are exotic, but not all exotics are supercars.

For its time the RX-7 could definitely be called the best performer for anywhere near its price. But, supercar? No.

 

The FD may not be in the supercar ranks. But it is a super car.

 

Upon further review, no, the FD as built OE or as typically modified is not a supercar.

In 1993, what you got was near-supercar performance at a non-supercar price. What was great about the FD that was uncommon of other cars of that ilk from that time period (the 3000GTs, Corvettes, and 300Zs and such) was the stuff that you can't change with bolt ons, that were typical of more expensive/exotic machinery—the attention to weight and stiffness of the chassis, the suspension engineering, aero, ballance—the platform. That meant with bolt-ons, you did have supercar performance for the time—I believe that was the inference in the original "Peter Farrell Supercars" name. It was true.

Today, that bar has been moved quite a bit, and it would take a significantly upgraded car to reach that level, but the most amazing thing about the FD is that the platform engineering really still allows it, more so than virtually any of it's competitors of the day.

Such a car would have be on the order of David Hayes or Gordon's car in execution, PLUS.

It would dictate an upgrade to Mov'iT carbon/ceramic brakes, a top of the line JRZ or similar suspension. Some carbon bodywork, and perhaps structural pieces (like a Carbon PPF), and likely some aero underbody work. Today's supercars are zero lift or downforce producing (think Ferrari Enzo, or McLaren F1).

The fact that all of that's true if you were so inclined though, adds up to a great value some 16 years on.