What was the first sports car?

[300bhp/ton]

The hot hatch seems to be the car everyone obsesses over, on which was first. However what about the venerable sports car?

When did they actually come into existence and which one(s) were first?

Edited by 300bhp/ton on Wednesday 10th May 17:09

[nicanary]

It has been argued that it was the Mercedes 60hp of 1903. This was a spectacularly quick and wieldy machine for its time, and was to some extent a racing car adapted for the road. The Mercedes team for the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy consisted of 60hp models taken from the local dealers and one of them still won the race against pukka racers from other nations.

[MorganP104]

nicanary said:

It has been argued that it was the Mercedes 60hp of 1903. This was a spectacularly quick and wieldy machine for its time, and was to some extent a racing car adapted for the road. The Mercedes team for the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy consisted of 60hp models taken from the local dealers and one of them still won the race against pukka racers from other nations.

/thread

We're probably not going to get any earlier than that!

[300bhp/ton]

nicanary said:

It has been argued that it was the Mercedes 60hp of 1903. This was a spectacularly quick and wieldy machine for its time, and was to some extent a racing car adapted for the road. The Mercedes team for the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy consisted of 60hp models taken from the local dealers and one of them still won the race against pukka racers from other nations.

Impressive.


I guess the 'big' question is. Is it a sports car in the modern sense of the word? For example, if you pulled 50 random people off the street and showed them a picture of the Mercedes 60hp and asked them if it was a 'sports car'. How many would actually say yes?

[nicanary]

300bhp/ton said:

nicanary said:

It has been argued that it was the Mercedes 60hp of 1903. This was a spectacularly quick and wieldy machine for its time, and was to some extent a racing car adapted for the road. The Mercedes team for the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy consisted of 60hp models taken from the local dealers and one of them still won the race against pukka racers from other nations.

Impressive.


I guess the 'big' question is. Is it a sports car in the modern sense of the word? For example, if you pulled 50 random people off the street and showed them a picture of the Mercedes 60hp and asked them if it was a 'sports car'. How many would actually say yes?

There's the rub. When fitted with a 4-seat body it looked just like any other car of the time. Which begs the question - is a sports car supposed to look different from a family car, and what makes the public think it should?

Here's one with a touring body (quite possibly this is easily removeable - it was common enough for owners to specify this so that they could also race it.)

[RichB]

From the same year the Napier racing cars were built to compete in the Gordon Bennett Trophy and are among the first British racing cars.



1903 4-cylinder 7700cc 50 hp Napier, the oldest surviving complete British Racing car. The car was driven by Charles Jarrott in the 1903 Gordon Bennett race. Now owned by the National Motor Museum Beaulieu.

[nicanary]

These Napiers were built specifically for racing. The production Napiers of the time were luxury cars usually fitted with imposing bodywork, and were not sports cars.

Another candidate might be the Prince Henry Vauxhall, another car with fine performance and good handling which could make a journey a bit quicker than most cars on the road. It was first seen in 1911.

[Riley Blue]

I'd go for this 1907 American Motor Car Company model with its underslung chassis; very sporty looking compared with others that have been mentioned.

[RDMcG]

I would agree for the 1910 Prinz Heinrich Austro-Daimler. This car was driven b Ferdinand Porsche ( who designed it) to win the 1910 Prinz Heinrich races.

The reason I would nominate it was that it went into series production immediately so there were about 50 built. The car in the pic is the actual car Porsche won in, and is now the property of Ernst Piëch, his grandson. It is in his wonderful museum in Austria. Ernst mentioned to me that he has driven this car at Goodwood.

[TooMany2cvs]

MorganP104 said:

nicanary said:

It has been argued that it was the Mercedes 60hp of 1903. This was a spectacularly quick and wieldy machine for its time, and was to some extent a racing car adapted for the road. The Mercedes team for the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy consisted of 60hp models taken from the local dealers and one of them still won the race against pukka racers from other nations.

/thread

We're probably not going to get any earlier than that!

Hold on a moment...

Why not 1902 - William Vanderbilt's Mors - the first internal combustion-powered Land Speed Record holder?
Or, if we're not being picky about internal combustion, how about 1898, and Chasseloup-Laubat's Jeantaud electric car - the first Land Speed Record holder?



Tell me THAT isn't a sportier look...? And nobody to say it couldn't be used on the road, of course, back then...

Let's be honest, "faster than yours" started the moment the second self-propelled vehicle was built.

[RichB]

Riley Blue said:

I'd go for this 1907 American Motor Car Company model with its underslung chassis; very sporty looking compared with others that have been mentioned.

Come on, it's widely known that America doesn't make sports cars

[300bhp/ton]

RichB said:

Come on, it's widely known that America doesn't make sports cars

Only to ignorant Brits, nobody else really thinks that way

[RichB]

300bhp/ton said:

RichB said:

Come on, it's widely known that America doesn't make sports cars

Only to ignorant Brits, nobody else really thinks that way

Ooo sorry didn't mean to touch a nerve... ok Corvette.

Anyway back to the first.

[Roy C]

nicanary said:

300bhp/ton said:

nicanary said:

It has been argued that it was the Mercedes 60hp of 1903. This was a spectacularly quick and wieldy machine for its time, and was to some extent a racing car adapted for the road. The Mercedes team for the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy consisted of 60hp models taken from the local dealers and one of them still won the race against pukka racers from other nations.

Impressive.


I guess the 'big' question is. Is it a sports car in the modern sense of the word? For example, if you pulled 50 random people off the street and showed them a picture of the Mercedes 60hp and asked them if it was a 'sports car'. How many would actually say yes?

There's the rub. When fitted with a 4-seat body it looked just like any other car of the time. Which begs the question - is a sports car supposed to look different from a family car, and what makes the public think it should?

Here's one with a touring body (quite possibly this is easily removeable - it was common enough for owners to specify this so that they could also race it.)

Here's a Mercedes 60HP at Wiscombe Park (Sawbench Hairpin) last Sunday (this car is a stripped-down 2-seater)

[Nik da Greek]

Mercer Raceabout? 1910-ish America. Sold as a sportscar to gentleman enthusiasts to fund racing. The default was a bodiless lightweight (for the time) sportster with two seats and only a monocle windscreen, Unlike the Benzes et al proposed above that still usually had full bodywork, tool boxes and all kinds of frivolous paraphenalia. Like windscreens, lol

[Roy C]

nicanary said:

Another candidate might be the Prince Henry Vauxhall, another car with fine performance and good handling which could make a journey a bit quicker than most cars on the road. It was first seen in 1911.

I've often heard the Vauxhall Prince Henry described as the first British sports car.
Three were built for the 1910 "Prinz Heinrich Fahrt" (Prince Henry Tour), which was a test for production touring cars.
Originally known as the C10, these cars subsequently went into production with the Prince Henry moniker.
Prince Henry (Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia) was "Kaiser Bill's" brother.

Here's a 1911/12 Vauxhall Prince Henry Replica with it's distinctive pointed rad and probably the first Vauxhall bonnet flutes.

[Longnose]

"However what about the vulnerable sports car?"
LOL, do you mean venerable, or that sports cars are generally deathtraps?

[300bhp/ton]

Longnose said:

"However what about the vulnerable sports car?"
LOL, do you mean venerable, or that sports cars are generally deathtraps?

[S47]

It's a hypothetical Q - to which we'll never get an answer which satifies everyone.
>
The saddest part these days is that when 'sports car' is mentioned the average teenager thinks that a Golf GTI, BMW M3/4/5 etc or Focus RS is a sports car, when in reality its a boring overweight & overpriced TINTOP/shopping trolley with stripes and a chrome exhaust trim
>
Or am I just being a sad old old git who remembers and regularly partakes in glorious open air motoring in a true sports car

[LuS1fer]

From an early age, the accepted wisdom was that it was probably the 1911 Prince Henry Vauxhall whose high performance was dependent less on brute strength and more on overall excellence of design and sturdiness of construction such that it went and handled.