Sports car or performance car

I think sometimes we confuse the two or don't recognize the difference. At the ends of the specrum would be a the small low powered often convertible two seater with good handling and style as a sports car. At the other is the dedicated performance street machine with a lot of power and stiff excellent handling or a set up for straight line speed. I would say that a stock MX-5 is a sports car and Porsche tends to the performance minded. Sure some models meet in the middle and can be tweaked either way and some are designed to be both but realizing that there is difference can be useful when discussing the relative merits of sports and performance cars.

Cheers Ron

In reply to rconlon:

True sports cars have two seats and no fixed roof. Roadsters are sports cars other thngs are other things.

YMMV

We could make ourselves crazy trying to categorize some models, but I'd say in general:

Sports cars have two seats (and sometimes a miniature rear seat) and tops that fold down or come off.

Cars that would otherwise be sports cars but have non-removable hard tops are GTs.

Performance cars are things like Camaros or Road Runners.

Where is John Bond when you need him?

As humans, we like categories that things fit into nicely. Many cars just don't fit into nice and neat categories.

In the classic car world, there are cars that came along, broke the mold and created new categories. The BMW 2002 comes to mind.

Basically, I agree with VClassics: sports cars are 2 (or +2) seaters that open to the sky and GT cars have fixed lids. I don't care too much about the rest =)

So the Datsun 240Z, pre-80's TVRs, 911, etc.. aren't sports cars? I have a Pontiac Solstice (company car - I wouldn't buy it with my own money) that I would absolutely NOT catagorize as a sports car, but it has 2 seats and a folding top. What about a MGB GT? Yes, I guess it is a GT since it's in the name, but is it really any less of a sports car than a drop top MGB? I suppose it depends on how you define a sports car, but I define it based on the driving experience, not it's physical makeup. It must pass the test of being "sporting" in it's character, which in my opinion has nothing to do with the number of seats or the style of the top or how much power it has. But that's just me. I understand that others would define it otherwise.

In reply to bravenrace:

Its a pointless topic and pure individual interpretation. Hence my post ends with YMMV "your mileage may vary" Regarding a Solstice maybe you need to look at the fact that there are bad sports cars as well as good. Most car guys think the designation sports car is a good thing so they want it to apply to whatever they love or own.

I agree. I was just adding an additional interpretation that I hadn't seen anyone else offer. But the solstice isn't a bad sports car, it's a decently mediocre touring car posing as a sports car. However, when modified, they can be pretty decent sports cars. Being a company car, I haven't and won't modify mine, so I have to live with what it is. And the fact is, my '89 Civic si is a better handling car with better road feel and feedback, which is part of what I look for in a sports car.
Some thought the early 90's Capri was a sports car. It fits some of the definitions here. I had experience with both that car and a comparable year Miata. There is no way I personally can say both were sports cars, regardless of how many seats they had or that the top came down. The Miata was a sports car, the Capri was a cheap imitation. So it depends on how you define a sports car. Is it how it looks or how it drives? For me, how it drives is how I define it, but YMMV.

I gave up trying to catagorize cars that way a while ago. For me, it is easier to break cars down into the ones I want to own, and the ones I don't.

This argument/discussion never gets resolved.

As someone that favours what the reviewers used to call 'close coupled' closed cars, I would be happy to debate the statement that a sports car must be a convertible, but it would be much more fun to do that over a bottle of wine than over an internet link....

Couple of my closed cars that I would definitely call sports cars:

Front one is a sports car:

This is also a sports car, though closed (also an MGA chassis):

PS - just for our friend with the TVR avatar, a car I sold awhile ago, also a sports car, also a closed car:

You can call them any thing you want as long as you keep showing us those beautiful cars!

wspohn wrote: PS - just for our friend with the TVR avatar, a car I sold awhile ago, also a sports car, also a closed car:

Hey, you don't have to convince me! Here's one of mine, (although it now belongs to someone else), and it is definitely a sports car:

wspohn wrote: This argument/discussion never gets resolved. As someone that favours what the reviewers used to call 'close coupled' closed cars, I would be happy to debate the statement that a sports car must be a convertible, but it would be much more fun to do that over a bottle of wine than over an internet link.... Couple of my closed cars that I would definitely call sports cars: Front one is a sports car:

Man, those are nice cars! I have admired your jamaican since the first time I saw it, and that MGA really does it for me! Is that your Solstice coupe behind it? I'd be interested in knowing what you think of that in comparison.

I always see hard top cars as GT cars. IE there was the MGB and the MGBGT. Is the MGA a sports car ? Sure. Is it still in the fixed top ?? Is the XK150 DH a sports car ? Certainly. Is it still as a hard top ? How about the Boxster and the Caymen ? How about an Elan ? If thats not a sports car nothing is. When you attach a hard top ?? Still a sports car to me because its removeable.

YMMV

Real sports cars don't have fenders!

Dave

How about using the power to weight ratio as the dividing line between as sports car and a GT? I don't have a number in mind, but look at some undisputed sports (911, 240Z, XKE ) vs touring car (BMW 3xx, Jag XJS, Mercedes CLK) ratios and set it in between.

Spoken like an engineer, applying cold hard numbers to solve a problem. My enthusiast side tells me there's more to it than that but the fun factor is damn hard to quantify.

mike

I've never thought of a sports car as being slow or fast. I know a sports car when I drive one, plain and simple (according to my definition). To me it's not what it looks like, or if it's top goes down, or what kind of power it has. It needs to be relatively light, with superior feedback through the controls, and have a happy engine. One that, whether fast or slow, wants to run. The driving position needs to be sporty, and it MUST have a manual transmission. I'd love to have a quantifiable definition, as I'm an engineer myself, but to me there isn't one. It's about the cars character, about the driving experience. But that's just me.

bravenrace wrote: Man, those are nice cars! I have admired your jamaican since the first time I saw it, and that MGA really does it for me! Is that your Solstice coupe behind it? I'd be interested in knowing what you think of that in comparison.

The Jamaican is fun, (although very low) as it has light weight combined with decent power - around 200 BHP.

The MGA coupe in the picture runs a stockish MGB engine (it is a Mk 2) and is reasonably sporting, but not nearly as much fun as a Twin Cam that will zing around the tachometer to 7000 and has excellent power (for the time).

Which in turn is not nearly as much fun as my 'special' Twin Cam with 170 BHP and a 7800 red line

The Solstice was adequate when purchased, but not quite where I wanted it. I changed sway bars, shocks and springs and added a couple of frame reinforcements that tightened everything up nicely - to the point that had they made them this way stock it would have put many non-sporting drivers off, but it's exactly what I was after.

I also enhanced the power by a fair bit (probably around 340 BHP or 290 RWP), and it is now a hoot and a half to drive. Very taut and predictable car that (by comparison with others) will do a 1/4 mile in under 13 flat and still get 30 mpg when you keep your foot out of it.

And I haven't had the top off yet - but then I hadn't taken the sun roof out on the Fiero in years, either.

If you ever find one, consider grabbing it. With 1200 built (referring to the coupe only) some prospect of slower depreciation and tons of tuning possibilities.

Porsches - always a bit hard to pigeon hole as they had rear seats (of a sort) but normally ran SCCA as sports cars (except for a year or two as, I think, B sedans).

These cars are, IMHO, both GT and sports cars. The early cars were lightweight reasonably powerful sporting vehicles (as anyone that has ever driven a 1960s 911S can attest) but the later ones got heavier and shifted their focus to mnore and more power.

Draw the dividing line where you like, but for me the 2.4 cars were the last sports cars - after 1972 or so and the advent of the non-round bumper cars, they were off into GT wet dream land....