There are many sports car lovers who are afraid that they will soon go the way of the dinosaur because of high fuel prices and the advances in performance technology that is enabling family sedans to compete with sports cars in quickness. While it does seem that there has been somewhat of a decline in sports cars along with increased sales of SUVs some of the current developments tell me that the vehicles we love are not going to be around in large numbers but they will still be around.
Back in the day, muscle cars ruled in the performance realm and regular sedans and trucks couldn’t keep up. SUVs didn’t even exist. Now with the innovations in design and engine performance and the light weight materials being used automakers are getting superior results out of smaller engines. In addition normal production vehicles now handle as good as a race car.
Some of the other issues that are causing the decline in the numbers of sports cars seen on the road include comfort and affordability. Sports cars in the truest sense are not built for comfort, they are built for speed and long road trips are no fun. The larger cars of today that still offer a sporty ride give you the best of both worlds. As far as the affordability issue goes, it is quite simple most families are just unable to afford the expense of having a car just for fun. People these days have to make use of their cars on a daily basis as it has become cost prohibitive to keep one around just as a hobby or weekend car.
In the beginning cars were used as sport, for racing across country in rallies and contests. It wasn’t until much later that they became mainstream everyday drivers.
Some good news for the high end sports car market is that there are several companies that are beginning production of hybrid or electric sports cars. Some of the top companies like Toyota, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi are working on bringing them to the open market.
The most promising one that I have seen as a true sports car in terms of performance and the fact that it is a two seater is the new totally electric roadster from Tesla Motors, a company backed by the founders of Google and Paypal. The car does 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds and it runs on laptop batteries!
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Filed under Sports Cars by on May 6th, 2009. Comment. 
Originally, it was easy to differentiate between a sports car and a regular production automobile. If a regular person could buy it, it wasn’t a sports car. Sports cars were toys for the extremely rich and automobile-obsessed. They are also used primarily in situations that represented a radical departure from conventional driving. Road races, rallies and other competitions were the home of the sports car as manufacturers and designers went head to head, testing their newest technological advances and inventive ideas.
These sports cars were almost always designed for a single driver and no additional passengers. Occasionally a "co-pilots" seat might have been added. The notion of a backseat made little sense considering the purposes for which the cars were being used. They tended to be extremely small and exceptionally faster than most regularly produced cars.
This historical moment gave birth to a notion of the sports car that survives today among many automotive enthusiasts. These traditionalists will consider a car a sports car only if it is a two-seater and designed for racing.
This perspective was antiquated somewhat by the post-war experience in the United States and elsewhere. Cars based upon the test car technologies began to make their way into the garages of the public. With a more mainstream audience, some changes were made to the traditional sports car, including the frequent addition of a small back seat.
As time passed, sports cars slowly grew and the technologies pioneered by sports cars found their way into vehicles, which were not undersized or built for racing.
In the 1960s, John Delorean decided to drop a large V8 into a Pontiac Tempest. His new invention, the GTO, ushered in the muscle car era. Purists might argue the American muscle cars were not sports cars, but simply cars making use of sports car refinements. The distinction however, began to become lost in regular conversation and "sports car" began to refer to any fast or high-performance vehicle.
The line becomes increasingly blurred with every year. Traditional sports cars are becoming increasingly rare as automakers recognize a need to maintain some level of functionality if they are to entice buyers. The innovations spurred by traditional sports cars are being adopted into vehicles of every size and shape. While traditional racing style sports cars are maintained in many product lines and though some boutique manufacturers still focus their efforts on small high-speed cars, it is impossible to ignore the "crossover" appeal of many traditional sports car features.
Some may say there are sports cars, sporty cars and sporting cars and that they are all different things. To the average person, however, they blend into one.
Which cars are sports cars? Today, it’s hard to tell. You can be a hardliner and say only the racing-based two-seaters qualify, or you can be liberal in your interpretation and proclaim all high-performance vehicles sports cars. Either way, you’d probably be right.
Filed under Sports Cars by on May 6th, 2009. Comment.
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