Is an R8 a Supercar?
Discussion
selym said:
Are they going to build you your own roads to drive it on? You are faster than anything on the road in a MINI, after all.
If you are going to quote me quote right.As Evo said on the car of the year the mini is hard to shake off on normal roads even in super cars so not sure your point ?
Any B road is 60mph which even your skip will do.
mrdemon said:
the "super car " tag is dead imo
now we have 6 or 7 hyper cars which to me are super cars every thing else is "super sports"
poster cars are todays hyper cars
i think this is where we are at after all these pages.now we have 6 or 7 hyper cars which to me are super cars every thing else is "super sports"
poster cars are todays hyper cars
i wouldn't call the supercar dead, but since the hypercar the supercar is now a second class citezen.
so unless you own the hypercars, someone can always beat you at car top trumps.
if it is the case that supercars are now the second place then i think the R8 and even the 911 turbo can be supercars, along side all the other also-rans like the entry level fezzas and mcclarens.
the SPEC F idea is utterly stuck on it's arse by the 918, a £650k hypercar that wears the porshe company face.
so post hypercar, the supercar moniker is a lot more pliable i would say.
mrdemon said:
If you are going to quote me quote right.
As Evo said on the car of the year the mini is hard to shake off on normal roads even in super cars so not sure your point ?
Any B road is 60mph which even your skip will do.
Ha ha! But MINI!As Evo said on the car of the year the mini is hard to shake off on normal roads even in super cars so not sure your point ?
Any B road is 60mph which even your skip will do.
Edited to add: I had five minutes so I thought I'd check I wasn't going mad.
you said:
I agree that it could keep up on a B road, you have to change gear at 7k on a Cayman and be on the boil, people change to early.
I said I can keep up with most cars with my JCW MINI @:-)
I'll go on and state this was why I sold my GT3 and why my TTRS was the quickest car on the road full stop A to B
I could not get the GT3 to rev out on B roads as the ratios were so long.
If you want the fastest A to B car the TTRS(chipped) is it. 430lbs torque to pull you out the corners.
crazy how fast you can pedal hot hatches.
Not mad, obviously. Let me know where you are building your roads, I'll keep my skip away from them to avoid being embarrassed by you.I said I can keep up with most cars with my JCW MINI @:-)
I'll go on and state this was why I sold my GT3 and why my TTRS was the quickest car on the road full stop A to B
I could not get the GT3 to rev out on B roads as the ratios were so long.
If you want the fastest A to B car the TTRS(chipped) is it. 430lbs torque to pull you out the corners.
crazy how fast you can pedal hot hatches.
Edited by mrdemon on Wednesday 10th September 08:37
Edited by selym on Thursday 25th September 09:56
In my view there are a number of bands of cars and what you call them is up to you. At the top are what used to be called supercars that are now called Hypercars, you then have what used to be junior supercars that are now called supercars and then you have the rest of the high performance sector.
The word supecar has become so badly abused it is becomming meaningless as other have suggested. The Gaydon Supercar Sunday has become a joke with Elises being allowed to enter. Nothing wrong with Elises and I own one but never is it a supercar!
The discussion seems to be what gets you into the middle band. That middle band is still a very exclusive sector and as has been already suggested the car needs to meet a number of critria to get there. If it does not meet all the criteria it does not get there. A slight fail on one may still allow it to scrap in special cases because it is all subjective anyway. Does that make it a bad car? no just different that appeals to a different customer.
I would suggest the criteria are:
1) Performance: Has to be in the very top end of the market
This changes with the times, Currently I would say a top speed of 200mph+ and a 0 to 60 time of less than 3.5 seconds is needed. If more than one engine option is offered in the same identical body then the lowest powered engine is used to check against this criteria.
2) Desirbility.
Is the car really desirable? Would it be a poster car that a car mad child would have on his bedroom wall? Would it be high on your list to buy if you won the lottery? Finally (and very important in this sector) what is the Brand image? If you say you own/drive a car of that make.
This is the one which rules out an awful lot of high performace cars from reaching this sector. Just a few examples 'Audi = A4 repomobile', 'Mercedes = rusty Sprinter van or German Taxi'
As anyone in marketing will say the image of the most expensive product of a brand cannot really have a higher brand image than the cheapest.
Yes it is badge snobbery but that is what makes this sector so special and the dream of many petrol heads to actually dream of one day owning something from it.
3) Exclusivity.
The car has to be expensive £170K plus (to keep it exclusive), available in limited numbers so not everyone who wants one can have one, cannot be advertised on TV and cannot be offered a discount as normal practise. Even the buying experience should be special. Selling a car from this sector from a showroom filled with Diesel repmobiles, city cars or vans is not the experince for this sector.
As a result they have to be rare and hardly ever seen. Being rare becuase they are readily available but nobody wants to buy them does not count!
If you apply these set of criteria then you can see what fits in this sector.
Based on these critria the R8 fails every single one.It is a good high performance sector car but does not fit into this sector (supercar, junior supercar, exotic or whatever you want to call it).
Some cars are very, very close and are skipping the line.
911 turbo is so very close and can be argued one way or the other, Mercedes SLS is also a no for me as it does not really meet most of the criteria.
Cars which do meet it?
To give a few examples.
All Ferrari (apart from the californian)
All Lamborghini
Noble
Mclaren
Aston Martin Vanquish (does not quite meet the performance criteria but still in the club)
911 Turbo (meets all critria apart from cost and rarity)
This sector is ruled by the heart and not the head and it will always be there whatever you want to call it.
The word supecar has become so badly abused it is becomming meaningless as other have suggested. The Gaydon Supercar Sunday has become a joke with Elises being allowed to enter. Nothing wrong with Elises and I own one but never is it a supercar!
The discussion seems to be what gets you into the middle band. That middle band is still a very exclusive sector and as has been already suggested the car needs to meet a number of critria to get there. If it does not meet all the criteria it does not get there. A slight fail on one may still allow it to scrap in special cases because it is all subjective anyway. Does that make it a bad car? no just different that appeals to a different customer.
I would suggest the criteria are:
1) Performance: Has to be in the very top end of the market
This changes with the times, Currently I would say a top speed of 200mph+ and a 0 to 60 time of less than 3.5 seconds is needed. If more than one engine option is offered in the same identical body then the lowest powered engine is used to check against this criteria.
2) Desirbility.
Is the car really desirable? Would it be a poster car that a car mad child would have on his bedroom wall? Would it be high on your list to buy if you won the lottery? Finally (and very important in this sector) what is the Brand image? If you say you own/drive a car of that make.
This is the one which rules out an awful lot of high performace cars from reaching this sector. Just a few examples 'Audi = A4 repomobile', 'Mercedes = rusty Sprinter van or German Taxi'
As anyone in marketing will say the image of the most expensive product of a brand cannot really have a higher brand image than the cheapest.
Yes it is badge snobbery but that is what makes this sector so special and the dream of many petrol heads to actually dream of one day owning something from it.
3) Exclusivity.
The car has to be expensive £170K plus (to keep it exclusive), available in limited numbers so not everyone who wants one can have one, cannot be advertised on TV and cannot be offered a discount as normal practise. Even the buying experience should be special. Selling a car from this sector from a showroom filled with Diesel repmobiles, city cars or vans is not the experince for this sector.
As a result they have to be rare and hardly ever seen. Being rare becuase they are readily available but nobody wants to buy them does not count!
If you apply these set of criteria then you can see what fits in this sector.
Based on these critria the R8 fails every single one.It is a good high performance sector car but does not fit into this sector (supercar, junior supercar, exotic or whatever you want to call it).
Some cars are very, very close and are skipping the line.
911 turbo is so very close and can be argued one way or the other, Mercedes SLS is also a no for me as it does not really meet most of the criteria.
Cars which do meet it?
To give a few examples.
All Ferrari (apart from the californian)
All Lamborghini
Noble
Mclaren
Aston Martin Vanquish (does not quite meet the performance criteria but still in the club)
911 Turbo (meets all critria apart from cost and rarity)
This sector is ruled by the heart and not the head and it will always be there whatever you want to call it.
selym said:
Not mad, obviously. Let me know where you are building your roads, I'll keep my skip away from them to avoid being embarrassed by you.
still not sure of your point, I said, as you have found "I can keep up with MOST cars in a mini JCW"Edited by selym on Thursday 25th September 09:56
that stands.
mrdemon said:
still not sure of your point, I said, as you have found "I can keep up with MOST cars in a mini JCW"
that stands.
MOST cars. Remember what section of PH's you're posting in. Anything 0-60 in 6+ secs is seriously slow. Maybe the other driver's you've come up against are 'aware' of their personal cost should an accident happen. If they were sitting in a £30k car they probably would drive it on the limit, sitting in £200k+ worth of car makes you think twice when you have some teacup up your backside in a hot hatch.that stands.
You need about 10 equally important factors (or spend another few months arguing about different weightings for 10 factors). Then score each car using a poll of "experts". Then determine a threshold overall score for supercars like "they have to be in the top quintile".
This way, a lowish score of one factor won't matter so long as there are high scores in other ones.
I'm not working it all out, btw
This way, a lowish score of one factor won't matter so long as there are high scores in other ones.
I'm not working it all out, btw
martisracing said:
To give a few examples.
All Ferrari (apart from the californian)
All Lamborghini
Noble
Mclaren
Aston Martin Vanquish (does not quite meet the performance criteria but still in the club)
911 Turbo (meets all critria apart from cost and rarity)
Even old californias had almost 500 horsepower, are worth £160k now (£10k shy of your arbitrary target price), are rare and exclusive, fast enough to beat 99% of things on the road and barely off your "target" 0-60 and top speed. The new one is over 550bhp, presumably over £170k in price and faster than almost anything out there (indeed almost on the pace of a 458).All Ferrari (apart from the californian)
All Lamborghini
Noble
Mclaren
Aston Martin Vanquish (does not quite meet the performance criteria but still in the club)
911 Turbo (meets all critria apart from cost and rarity)
In contrast gallardos are massively compromised for everyday usability (at least for a lamborghini), many older models are slower and the weren't all over £170k when new. On top of that they made 14,000 of them, which isn't all that exclusive.
The whole supercar definition thing is pointless. Every just comes up with random list of what they feel a supercar should do/be and then skews it all so they can make it fit the cars they like or feel are worthy. Some people don't aspire to own porsches so no porsche will make their list, others think the R8 looks like a TT so will find any way to exclude it.
In contrast owners of any of these cars will always want their model on the list even if it's actually slower, more common, less desirable and less interesting to other people than many cars they haven't put on their list.
It's hard to be fully objective and neutral, everyone has favourites. I'd personally 100% put the Noble M600 on a supercar list, because it's a wonderful car I'd kill gallardo owners to own. But I'm sure many would disagree because it has no heritage or looks like a kit car or wahtever
Japveesix said:
The whole supercar definition thing is pointless.
No it isn't. Definitions like this always have gatekeepers. The classic definition debate is "what is art". It's something that is always argued about and can certainly be defined, though not to everyone's agreement.It's all about society's gatekeepers for the term. Are we gatekeepers? Not really, maybe marginally. Who is? Undoubtedly Clarkson and other "respected" automotive journalists.
Behemoth said:
Japveesix said:
The whole supercar definition thing is pointless.
No it isn't. Definitions like this always have gatekeepers. The classic definition debate is "what is art". It's something that is always argued about and can certainly be defined, though not to everyone's agreement.It's all about society's gatekeepers for the term. Are we gatekeepers? Not really, maybe marginally. Who is? Undoubtedly Clarkson and other "respected" automotive journalists.
Behemoth said:
fulham911club said:
How can you cite Clarkson? Far too biased and over- self opinionated
Because he's very clearly a gatekeeper in this domain. It doesn't matter how biased or opinionated he is, society regards him as a better authority on "supercars" than they ever would you or I.http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/cardata/?cat=super...
Pioneer said:
mrdemon said:
still not sure of your point, I said, as you have found "I can keep up with MOST cars in a mini JCW"
that stands.
MOST cars. Remember what section of PH's you're posting in. Anything 0-60 in 6+ secs is seriously slow. Maybe the other driver's you've come up against are 'aware' of their personal cost should an accident happen. If they were sitting in a £30k car they probably would drive it on the limit, sitting in £200k+ worth of car makes you think twice when you have some teacup up your backside in a hot hatch.that stands.
In fact inferior sight lines and extra girth makes them slower if anything in the "real" world
fulham911club said:
I have no problem with that. You could, for example, compare the lists of 5 other august journals and only keep the ones that are common to at least 3 of them.
fulham911club said:
Does clicking "Next" at the bottom of that page work for anybody? I just get an error:
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