So What Exactly Is A Sports Car?
So what exactly is a sports car?
When someone says sports car, what do you think of first?
I think car enthusiasts these days are divided into two basic camps - on one side are the purists, who say that a sports car is about tactile feel, needs to have two doors and preferably two seats and a roof that folds down at the push of a button (or for the hardcore, a few flips of the wrist and a swing of the arm.) They say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey - a sports car is one you don’t feel strange putting on some stringback driving gloves and flinging it up a mountain pass with a favorite CD on the radio. Sports cars are defined by the experience…
To others, a sports car means a car that possesses performance abilities above and beyond mere commuter fodder. Forward acceleration and deceleration, lateral acceleration, powerbands and torque curves, brake horsepower per ton and total swept brake area per ton. How many gears? Where does the turbo kick in? Where does the engine run out of steam? Are you still in the fat part of the powerband when you drop it into the next gear from redline? How about some 0-60’s, 1/4 mile times, top speeds, g’s of lateral acceleration, braking distances? How about in-gear passing power? In a word, this group is about the numbers.
By this logic, the first group winds up in a mid-ninties Miata - british racing green, tan roof, optional limited slip differential. The second party winds up in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.
But it seems to me these days that the lines are being blurred more than ever before. And, (of course), it’s all the fault of ze Germans. Well, and the Japanese.
To explain, let’s think of a legendary sports car from, say, 15 years ago. In 1992, just about the most badass car you could purchase from your domestic dealerships was the C4 Corvette with the optional ZR-1 option package. Lotus-designed, Mercury Marine built 32-valve, quad cam 350 cubic inch V8. 405 horsepower. ZF 6 speed manual. 305mm rear tires. Widened fenders. 186 miles an hour. Power everywhere. It could burn rubber up to 70 miles an hour. And it hit sixty miles an hour in 4.9 seconds. But it wasn’t cheap. Nearly $70,000 dollars (in 1992!) was the entry price for the General’s road rocket. Back at this time, the Lexus brand was still getting on it’s cute little feet - it had only been around for 3 years, and the Germans were only beginning to take it seriously. The most potent car they offered was the fat, boring, 250 horsepower LS400 sedan - a Mercedes S420 for people with no imagination, or taste.
Now let’s come back to the present. Late 2007. Walk into your Lexus dealer early next year, and ask your salesperson to show you their shiney, new IS-F.
It’s a compact executive sedan, but with a twist: check out those blistered fenders, giant wheels, huge Brembo brakes, quad exhaust tips. Scope out that bulging hood and giant air intakes on the front fascia. What’s this business?
To speak in a language that camp #2 would understand: 5.0L 32v V8. 416 horsepower. 371 lb-ft. 8 speed automatic. Limited slip diff. 0-60 in 4.6 seconds. Top speed electronically limited to 170. (Rumor has it it’s good for 186 when you clip that wire.) Mid 12-second quarter mile. All this with Lexus refinement, Toyota reliability, and for around $60,000 dollars (and mind you, that’s 2007 dollars.)
To speak in the language of the first camp: It’s a fun to drive Lexus sedan. Sharp steering, great throttle response, sounds amazing, it’s a hoot to hoon about in. It’s a Lexus that can let it’s hair down, turn it’s VDC off, and lay down two thick stripes.
And the IS-F isn’t just a random bright star in Lexus’ lineup. The standard IS with the optional engine has 306 horses and hits sixty in 5.3 seconds; it runs a sub 14-second quarter mile as well. The GS is available with a 380 horsepower V8. Even the LS hauls some serious ass these days.
And they’re not alone. Every “upper-level” brand has a compact sedan with performance that rivals or even eclipses that of the celebrated sports cars of the 1990’s. Infiniti’s G35 sedan is about as quick as an LT1 Corvette. BMW’s 335i can hit sixty in 5 seconds flat - significantly faster than the mid-ninties E36-generation M3. Volvo’s 300bhp S60R AWD is faster in the 0-60 sprint than the original Acura NSX, a car labeled as a “Ferrari Slayer” in it’s day. Volvo!
It almost seems like the sports car in a traditional sense is dying. For instance, park a Pontiac Solstice GXP next to a Cadillac CTS, and guess which one had it’s suspension fine-tuning done at the Nurburgring Nordschliefe. I’ll give you a hint: there aren’t kidney grilles on the front. The Solstice is a cheap (but certainly gorgeous) parts-bin special. Pontiac’s own G8 GT sedan is a well developed, powerful RWD sports sedan.
Honda killed off the Prelude to make space for a more sporting version of the Accord Coupe. The Acura CL and NSX disappeared, and the TL Type-S is holding down the fort as far as excitement goes with Honda’s luxury brand.
Mazda’s fastest car in the ’90’s was a sexy two-seat, twin turbo rotary powered flyweight called the RX-7. Nowaday’s it’s a turbocharged 4-cylinder hatchback called the Mazdaspeed3.
Don’t get me wrong; I love all these new sports cars conveniently disguised as family haulers. They’re total sleepers. But I wish the market would actually make some good sports cars again.