RE: What is a supercar? PH Blog
Discussion
Skater12 said:
Random Criteria...
This is fine using todays standards & buying a new car, Ferrari Testarossa, Countach, we all had pics of them on our walls when we were kids but they now wouldn't qualify as a 'supercar'? - Must cost more than the average UK house price
- Must have a waiting list in excess of 12 months
- Must be capable of 200mph+ and 0-62 in under 3.8 sec
- Must be totally impractical
- Must be named after a mythical beast, dangerous animal or sound like a military weapon
Bear Phils said:
A supercar shouldn't need to be defined. If it is a supercar, you will know.
I agree with the above, I've had my Esprit S4 for 10 years, its still excites on a Sunday morning drive, it still gets school kids pointing & gasping, you can buy a nice example for 15k, its a supercar because its looks, performance & exclusivity, its excites now just as it did in 94 when it came out of Hethel, nearly 20 years ago.
gsuk1 said:
I think the 4C will prove to be an awesome 'sports car'! And what's wrong with being a sports car...? For me I see it as part of the Cayman S, Lotus Evora, Jag FType kind of area which are all sports cars.
Super cars for me at the McLaren MP4-12C, Audi R8, 911, 458 etc...
and Hyper cars are the Pagani's, McLaren P1, La Ferrari (stupid damn name) kind of area...
Incidental I think Clarkson's comment on the F12 is being "too powerful" was a bad choice of words, I think "Doesn't handle its power very well" would be better. The F12 is very twitchy, which makes it feel very dynamic and responsive rather than planted. This set up is probably more suited to a 458 super car, rather than F12 super GT... In my opinion anyway.
You see, I'd say that a 911 and R8 and even the Macca and 458 are just sports cars. Fantastic, impressive, modern sports cars.Super cars for me at the McLaren MP4-12C, Audi R8, 911, 458 etc...
and Hyper cars are the Pagani's, McLaren P1, La Ferrari (stupid damn name) kind of area...
Incidental I think Clarkson's comment on the F12 is being "too powerful" was a bad choice of words, I think "Doesn't handle its power very well" would be better. The F12 is very twitchy, which makes it feel very dynamic and responsive rather than planted. This set up is probably more suited to a 458 super car, rather than F12 super GT... In my opinion anyway.
It's the halo models such as the P1, Laughararri, 177, Pagani etc that are supercars carrying on the tradition of the original supercars.
For me a Supercar is about the engineering behind it, and don't confuse this with manufacturing. Few cars deserve the term supercar if they have not had some race dedicated engineering in their DNA. Think most Ferraris, Porsche, Mercedes, McLaren, Bugatti, Bentley, Audi..... Then there are the boutiques that engineer to a very high level low volume cars like Pagani.
Supercars have been around for over a hundred years and really made themselves known for the endurance racing of the 20's / 30's such as Bugatti, Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Lagonda, Mercedes......
Supercars are not purely this based on outlandish styling and price. Think more of the R&D and engineering that has gone into it. If you ever look into a 20's Bugatti gear box you will understand 'engineering' or sit in a blower Bentley at full chat....
Supercars have been around for over a hundred years and really made themselves known for the endurance racing of the 20's / 30's such as Bugatti, Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Lagonda, Mercedes......
Supercars are not purely this based on outlandish styling and price. Think more of the R&D and engineering that has gone into it. If you ever look into a 20's Bugatti gear box you will understand 'engineering' or sit in a blower Bentley at full chat....
DonkeyApple said:
You see, I'd say that a 911 and R8 and even the Macca and 458 are just sports cars. Fantastic, impressive, modern sports cars.
It's the halo models such as the P1, Laughararri, 177, Pagani etc that are supercars carrying on the tradition of the original supercars.
I agree with this.It's the halo models such as the P1, Laughararri, 177, Pagani etc that are supercars carrying on the tradition of the original supercars.
According to the dictionary (Collins) a sports car is defined as: a car designed for speed, high acceleration, and maneuverability, having a low body and usually adequate seating for only two persons.
A super- prefix is defined as: surpassing others, outstanding, beyond a standard or norm.
So a super-sports car (aka supercar) is the sports car that surpasses all others.
The Miura was definitely a supercar as it met this criteria perfectly - fastest, most maneuverable, lowest etc.
If you chose to adopt this strict definition of the term 'super' you could argue there can only ever be one supercar at any given time - like Olympic champions or World record holders. But, like US Presidents, you would probably allow previous holders to retain their titles as badges of honour. In reality, the supercar tag is now more widespread than world title belts are in boxing - devalued. Apologies for going a bit off topic here...
So is the Alfa Romeo 4C, by definition, a supercar? Probably not. The existence of the Alfa Romeo 8C alone suggests the 4C can't be 'super' as other more exotic Alfas are available. So it's probably just a sports car with a carbon bodyshell. Interesting and unusual, but not 'super' in the true sense of the word.
A super- prefix is defined as: surpassing others, outstanding, beyond a standard or norm.
So a super-sports car (aka supercar) is the sports car that surpasses all others.
The Miura was definitely a supercar as it met this criteria perfectly - fastest, most maneuverable, lowest etc.
If you chose to adopt this strict definition of the term 'super' you could argue there can only ever be one supercar at any given time - like Olympic champions or World record holders. But, like US Presidents, you would probably allow previous holders to retain their titles as badges of honour. In reality, the supercar tag is now more widespread than world title belts are in boxing - devalued. Apologies for going a bit off topic here...
So is the Alfa Romeo 4C, by definition, a supercar? Probably not. The existence of the Alfa Romeo 8C alone suggests the 4C can't be 'super' as other more exotic Alfas are available. So it's probably just a sports car with a carbon bodyshell. Interesting and unusual, but not 'super' in the true sense of the word.
Hypercar, what’s that?, no such thing as far as I am concerned. I echo previous sentiments that the term hypercar is nothing more than a badge for the marketing department, I hate the word and it should be banned from the automotive press. It also means that because you can downgrade (from a marketing point of view) what a supercar is now we have this non-existent hypercar it means that people seem to lump cars like the 458, GT2/GT3 into the supercar category. To me the likes of a 458, 430, Gallardo, 911 GT3/2 et all are not supercars, they never have been and never will be (to be fair I don’t think Porsche market their hopped up 911’s as supercars), extremely capable and pretty fast yes, but they are sports cars not super cars.
Veyron, Zonda, Enzo, Aventador, Carrera GT, Ford GT etc. are the current (or last gen) supercars they are not hypercars (the term does not exist, even my spell checker agrees). Supercars also evolve like every car, just because a 70’s supercar can be outpaced by a BMW diesel SUV it doesn’t make them any less of a supercar, the likes of the Miura, XJ220 and F40 were the supercars of their day and still remain classed as super cars today, think of them as retired and enjoying their golden years
.
Supercars should also be as exclusive as possible, extremely low production levels, made of the latest materials, hardcore, woefully impractical, monsterous engines, jet fighter running costs, built to be enjoyed as nothing more than toys, they don’t even have to handle that well either imho as long as they make you grin like an idiot – want great handling to hammer round a track all day with similar performance but without the pose factor? Buy a Catarham R500 – you’ll be happier. Obviously a true supercar has to be road legal too.
Can you make a supercar, sure but you’d better have deep pockets as it will cost you a lot of money and should (again imho) be done from scratch (Pagani for example managed it and did a rather sterling job), but I could make my Mustang into something that makes the Veyron look slow in terms of straight line performance but would that make it a supercar, well it would be rare (not many Mustangs in the UK to start with and hardly any with that sort of performance), and it would fit most of the other criteria too, so would it be right to say it was a supercar then?, of course not because it’s a Mustang and they are not supercars.
Oh and a Nissan GTR is not a supercar, it never has been and never will be, I don’t care how good it is, it doesn’t cost enough, and is definitely not rare enough to be classed as a supercar. Call me a hard critic if you want but when I was little a supercar was something that 99.99% of the population could only have as a poster on their bedroom wall. If I wanted a Nissan GTR I wouldn’t have a problem getting a used one on tick, same for an older F430 etc. But an F40 or a Zonda, no chance this side of a lotto win.
Veyron, Zonda, Enzo, Aventador, Carrera GT, Ford GT etc. are the current (or last gen) supercars they are not hypercars (the term does not exist, even my spell checker agrees). Supercars also evolve like every car, just because a 70’s supercar can be outpaced by a BMW diesel SUV it doesn’t make them any less of a supercar, the likes of the Miura, XJ220 and F40 were the supercars of their day and still remain classed as super cars today, think of them as retired and enjoying their golden years
.Supercars should also be as exclusive as possible, extremely low production levels, made of the latest materials, hardcore, woefully impractical, monsterous engines, jet fighter running costs, built to be enjoyed as nothing more than toys, they don’t even have to handle that well either imho as long as they make you grin like an idiot – want great handling to hammer round a track all day with similar performance but without the pose factor? Buy a Catarham R500 – you’ll be happier. Obviously a true supercar has to be road legal too.
Can you make a supercar, sure but you’d better have deep pockets as it will cost you a lot of money and should (again imho) be done from scratch (Pagani for example managed it and did a rather sterling job), but I could make my Mustang into something that makes the Veyron look slow in terms of straight line performance but would that make it a supercar, well it would be rare (not many Mustangs in the UK to start with and hardly any with that sort of performance), and it would fit most of the other criteria too, so would it be right to say it was a supercar then?, of course not because it’s a Mustang and they are not supercars.
Oh and a Nissan GTR is not a supercar, it never has been and never will be, I don’t care how good it is, it doesn’t cost enough, and is definitely not rare enough to be classed as a supercar. Call me a hard critic if you want but when I was little a supercar was something that 99.99% of the population could only have as a poster on their bedroom wall. If I wanted a Nissan GTR I wouldn’t have a problem getting a used one on tick, same for an older F430 etc. But an F40 or a Zonda, no chance this side of a lotto win.
To my mind this is easy.
Super Car = Ferrari F40
Can a car do all it did does it cost more than 100k (200k today might be better bench mark)
200mph is minimum so 959 is not a supercar (though I suspect it is a super car)
4 seconds or less to 60 (I think the Diablo SE 30 was a 4 second car and definatly super
does it look like no other normal car so a S65 might do 200 mph and 0-60 under 4 seconds and costg over 100k but its not a supercar just a super car (other may know better never been near one)
does it define an era of cars i.e. xj220 first car where 200mph was just anther number on the speedo
Super Car = Ferrari F40
Can a car do all it did does it cost more than 100k (200k today might be better bench mark)
200mph is minimum so 959 is not a supercar (though I suspect it is a super car)
4 seconds or less to 60 (I think the Diablo SE 30 was a 4 second car and definatly super
does it look like no other normal car so a S65 might do 200 mph and 0-60 under 4 seconds and costg over 100k but its not a supercar just a super car (other may know better never been near one)
does it define an era of cars i.e. xj220 first car where 200mph was just anther number on the speedo
Bear Phils said:
A supercar shouldn't need to be defined.
If it is a supercar, you will know.Bear Phils said:
The point of the article is "how do you define a supercar".
This is the test of the definition. In the late 90s I was with the editor of What Mobile magazine and we were trying to come up with a definition which split feature phone, smartphone and PDA.
We tried all kinds of metrics - memory, screen, open OS, the ability to install apps. We tested them all against the phones we knew and something that was a smartphone by gut instinct was seen as a PDA and vice versa.
And then she came up with a definition which worked and which passed the empirical test (of the time, social norms have moved on).
She said "hold one to your ear as you walk down the street, if you look like a knob it's a PDA".
That passed our empirical tests.
PanzerCommander said:
Hypercar, what’s that?, no such thing as far as I am concerned. I echo previous sentiments that the term hypercar is nothing more than a badge for the marketing department, I hate the word and it should be banned from the automotive press. It also means that because you can downgrade (from a marketing point of view) what a supercar is now we have this non-existent hypercar it means that people seem to lump cars like the 458, GT2/GT3 into the supercar category. To me the likes of a 458, 430, Gallardo, 911 GT3/2 et all are not supercars, they never have been and never will be (to be fair I don’t think Porsche market their hopped up 911’s as supercars), extremely capable and pretty fast yes, but they are sports cars not super cars.
Veyron, Zonda, Enzo, Aventador, Carrera GT, Ford GT etc. are the current (or last gen) supercars they are not hypercars (the term does not exist, even my spell checker agrees). Supercars also evolve like every car, just because a 70’s supercar can be outpaced by a BMW diesel SUV it doesn’t make them any less of a supercar, the likes of the Miura, XJ220 and F40 were the supercars of their day and still remain classed as super cars today, think of them as retired and enjoying their golden years.
Supercars should also be as exclusive as possible, extremely low production levels, made of the latest materials, hardcore, woefully impractical, monsterous engines, jet fighter running costs, built to be enjoyed as nothing more than toys, they don’t even have to handle that well either imho as long as they make you grin like an idiot – want great handling to hammer round a track all day with similar performance but without the pose factor? Buy a Catarham R500 – you’ll be happier. Obviously a true supercar has to be road legal too.
Can you make a supercar, sure but you’d better have deep pockets as it will cost you a lot of money and should (again imho) be done from scratch (Pagani for example managed it and did a rather sterling job), but I could make my Mustang into something that makes the Veyron look slow in terms of straight line performance but would that make it a supercar, well it would be rare (not many Mustangs in the UK to start with and hardly any with that sort of performance), and it would fit most of the other criteria too, so would it be right to say it was a supercar then?, of course not because it’s a Mustang and they are not supercars.
Oh and a Nissan GTR is not a supercar, it never has been and never will be, I don’t care how good it is, it doesn’t cost enough, and is definitely not rare enough to be classed as a supercar. Call me a hard critic if you want but when I was little a supercar was something that 99.99% of the population could only have as a poster on their bedroom wall. If I wanted a Nissan GTR I wouldn’t have a problem getting a used one on tick, same for an older F430 etc. But an F40 or a Zonda, no chance this side of a lotto win.
I think this is a perfect explanation.Veyron, Zonda, Enzo, Aventador, Carrera GT, Ford GT etc. are the current (or last gen) supercars they are not hypercars (the term does not exist, even my spell checker agrees). Supercars also evolve like every car, just because a 70’s supercar can be outpaced by a BMW diesel SUV it doesn’t make them any less of a supercar, the likes of the Miura, XJ220 and F40 were the supercars of their day and still remain classed as super cars today, think of them as retired and enjoying their golden years
.Supercars should also be as exclusive as possible, extremely low production levels, made of the latest materials, hardcore, woefully impractical, monsterous engines, jet fighter running costs, built to be enjoyed as nothing more than toys, they don’t even have to handle that well either imho as long as they make you grin like an idiot – want great handling to hammer round a track all day with similar performance but without the pose factor? Buy a Catarham R500 – you’ll be happier. Obviously a true supercar has to be road legal too.
Can you make a supercar, sure but you’d better have deep pockets as it will cost you a lot of money and should (again imho) be done from scratch (Pagani for example managed it and did a rather sterling job), but I could make my Mustang into something that makes the Veyron look slow in terms of straight line performance but would that make it a supercar, well it would be rare (not many Mustangs in the UK to start with and hardly any with that sort of performance), and it would fit most of the other criteria too, so would it be right to say it was a supercar then?, of course not because it’s a Mustang and they are not supercars.
Oh and a Nissan GTR is not a supercar, it never has been and never will be, I don’t care how good it is, it doesn’t cost enough, and is definitely not rare enough to be classed as a supercar. Call me a hard critic if you want but when I was little a supercar was something that 99.99% of the population could only have as a poster on their bedroom wall. If I wanted a Nissan GTR I wouldn’t have a problem getting a used one on tick, same for an older F430 etc. But an F40 or a Zonda, no chance this side of a lotto win.
There needs to be a PH movement against the mediaw
k 'hypercar' term. It's an example of everything that has been made st in the West by facile muppets peddling unneeded tat.I think the problem is that the world has moved on since the term Supercar was first coined and it no longer makes as much, if any sense.
Back when the Muira was launched the average car took an age to get to 60 mph and probably didn't even get to a 100 mph. The Miura and its equivalent must have felt like hares amongst tortoises. Today's "Supercars/hypercars", like the Veyron, may be really fast but they only show their superiority at speeds only really seen on an (empty) autobahn. Great for bragging perhaps but I suspect that a well-driven AMG A45 would stick like glue to the back of any "Hypercar" on real roads.
As Syndrome said,"...once everone is Super....then no-one will be". Perhaps that applies to cars too - I know that quoting the Incredibles may take some flak
Back when the Muira was launched the average car took an age to get to 60 mph and probably didn't even get to a 100 mph. The Miura and its equivalent must have felt like hares amongst tortoises. Today's "Supercars/hypercars", like the Veyron, may be really fast but they only show their superiority at speeds only really seen on an (empty) autobahn. Great for bragging perhaps but I suspect that a well-driven AMG A45 would stick like glue to the back of any "Hypercar" on real roads.
As Syndrome said,"...once everone is Super....then no-one will be". Perhaps that applies to cars too - I know that quoting the Incredibles may take some flak
for me a supercar should be:
- beautiful to look at.
- total focused on the persuit of speed with scant regard for most practial considerations.
- rare.
- daughting to drive: no mere mortal should be able to just step in it and knock out fast laps straight off the bat. Respect needs to be earnt first! (see F40, McL F1, Diablo etc..)
- beautiful to look at.
- total focused on the persuit of speed with scant regard for most practial considerations.
- rare.
- daughting to drive: no mere mortal should be able to just step in it and knock out fast laps straight off the bat. Respect needs to be earnt first! (see F40, McL F1, Diablo etc..)
The deffinition of a supercar is a car that has no equal in its range.
So a Porsche 911 GT2 can't be a supercar as it has the Carrera 2 in the same range.
Mercedes SL65 can't be as it has SL 350.
Only cars that were built to be supercars can be supercars not tuned up versions of normal cars.
So a Porsche 911 GT2 can't be a supercar as it has the Carrera 2 in the same range.
Mercedes SL65 can't be as it has SL 350.
Only cars that were built to be supercars can be supercars not tuned up versions of normal cars.
Supercars..Hypercars..they are all sportscars as is surely the Alfa 4C.
Surely the criteria should be 2 seater, good roadholding and handling and all else goes.
Hypercars are obviously for the middle eastern gentlemen who roar around Harrods without insurance, incorrect documentation and questionable personalisation, ie fluffy velvet paintwork, lurid colour schemes, hard to read arabic scrawl registration plates, and diplomatic immunity badges.
Surely the criteria should be 2 seater, good roadholding and handling and all else goes.
Hypercars are obviously for the middle eastern gentlemen who roar around Harrods without insurance, incorrect documentation and questionable personalisation, ie fluffy velvet paintwork, lurid colour schemes, hard to read arabic scrawl registration plates, and diplomatic immunity badges.
Bear Phils said:
A supercar shouldn't need to be defined. If it is a supercar, you will know.
Spot on. To define a supercar is very difficult/impossible, but you know when you see one that it is one.Also part of the difficulties are to do with time a 70s supercar may be surpassed by a hot hatch of today, but compared to its contemporaries it was/is a supercar.
Glad i'm not the only one who thinks these superfast cars are getting out of hand. I mean all cars are limited by the mushy bit behind the wheel and if a 'supercar' is too competent wouldn't it be boring to drive (obvious other points aside) unless you had the space, the lack of speed limits and the skills of peter Solberg to push the 'envelope'. You can push the limits of an everyday cooking car, have fun and still keep your license.
I agree.
I agree.
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