[Closed] What defines a 'Supercar'

Supercar = Teenage bedroom wall poster material.

Back in my youth, the Countach was king, especially if it had a massive spoiler on the back. Regardless of whether it's a pig to drive with a recalcitrant transmission, service intervals measured in weeks, windows you can't see out of and mouse-fart ventilation it's not about the practicalities of ownership. In second place was the Testarossa, beloved of the Outrun & Miami Vice generation, followed by the Porsche 959.

If I had the money to own any of them, I still wouldn't bother. They all belong on a wall in the 1980s IMHO.

Pigface - Member

jimjam happily ignoring the real world scenario

Ack well, yeah. In the real world a Smart car will trounce a Koenigsegg for ease of use in Tesco's car park.

"the Countach was king" yes it was and still looks mad, but have you ever had a really good look at one, open the doors engine bay etc?
the engine is a beaut, but the car is just terribly made. Shocking. even by 1970's standards, even by 1970's Italian standards, its bad.

Supercars moving bench mark, a NSX is because it was in its day. But not against todays supercars.

So the GTR isn't a supercar then?

I guess there are subjective elements too, as impressive as a GTR is, it just doesn't stir up the same emotions as a Ferrari or Lambo, it doesn't look particularly exotic (dull, imo) and come on, who is impressed by 'Yeah I know it isn;t a Ferrari, but it is cheaper, more economical and had a bigger boot!'

As a fuzzy haired, tall, tv car journo once said, supercars have to embody sex and violence, though looks and power. The GTR is 1 for 2.

Here's a question, does anyone frequenting this forum own anything that could be honestly described as a "supercar"?

Nissan's supercar.

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It's got to be stupidly fast and completely impractical for doing anything other than going stupidly fast.

A friend has (amongst others) an Enzo and a 599. The 599 is for taking his mum to lunch. The Enzo is for trying to make his passengers lose theirs.

I've no idea whether either is a supercar, but I'd far rather do a longish journey in the 599, which makes the Enzo a wee bit impractical as a road car, which maybe means it's closer to supercar territory than sports car.

P1 and the like is definite supercar to me, simply due to technology etc...but that contradicts with my earlier statement because it's apparently quite nice on the road too!

Love this video...It's a new thing 🙂

Here's a question, does anyone frequenting this forum own anything that could be honestly described as a "supercar"?

Have TDI Passat (it is the 'sport' model) 😉

I had one, but my mum gave it to a jumble sale along with all my 2000AD comics. 🙁

There is no clear definition anymore, just like the definition of various road and mountain bikes types have blurred

Supercars should make you smile when you see them
Hypercars should make you gurn

If its a Nissan it's not a supercar, I don't care how fast it goes or how much it costs 😉

LoCo - Member

Here's a question, does anyone frequenting this forum own anything that could be honestly described as a "supercar"?

Have TDI Passat (it is the 'sport' model)

But aparently molgrips one is more powerful than yours.... 😳

Lol, not the guy in the Golf Estate R thread's 911

You're quite right, a 911 4S is nowhere near exclusive enough to be called a "supercar". You can buy a new one for less than £100K (just), a decent low mileage used one for around half that, only around 400 hp, but top class handling, brakes etc, Still better to drive than a lot of actual supercars.

Nah jimjam's right, the R390 belongs...... even if they just built enough (1 of each variant) to get past homologation rules

you have to get from Builth to Machynlleth as fast as you can

Just been told a story about my wife's friend who was persuaded she wasn't in labour by Shrewsbury hospital so went back home, only to find as they got back in the door that she was, and the baby had turned. The ambulance drivers were determined not to have to deliver the baby so they managed to get to Shrewsbury hospital in 15 minutes. It's 30 miles of A road! Apparently some kind of record.

Actually.. that's an average of 120mph.. I suspect that story's been massaged a bit, or she lived closer to Shrewsbury than has been related...

anything that makes molgrips nervous

So pretty much any car with you petrol head hooligans driving...

So who can build "Supercars" then? are we going to trot out the Italians? Lets not transpose "character" as unreliable and prone to catching fire.

LoCo - Member
GT3?

Surely not. No more than an M3 GTS etc

Where do you draw the line then? A GT3 RS 4.0 is most definitely a supercar by any standard. A cooking GT3 probably borderline, but I'd say it is. Have you driven a 991 GT3?, it's pretty f****** awesome.

Nothing based on a cooking saloon/coupe can really ever be called a supercar. An M3 GTS certainly isn't. It might have "supercar" performance, but it's not actually a supercar in my book.

You can buy a new one for less than £100K (just)

I thought they were less than £90k? If that counts as 'just', can I have £10k please?

Lets not transpose "character" as unreliable and prone to catching fire.

You mention Italians then perfectly describe a TVR 😉

TVR struggles to be described as a car 😆

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Is this a supercar? - a Lambo with a Citroen 2CV body 🙂

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I'll race your Ferrari across a muddy field...

Something with no place on a public road.

I thought they were less than £90k? If that counts as 'just', can I have £10k please?

991 4S PDK - base price £91K + metallic paint £800 + sports seats £1500 + sports chrono £1376 + tracking system (compulsory on insurance) £1140 + Bose sound £1000 + telephone module £558

Already fast approaching £100K and not even got started on the full options list. Most of these cars are delivered at over £100K.

It doesn't matter though because it's not a supercar according to STW.

So the GTR isn't a supercar then?

No, it's a saloon car

The Special Seal Of Approval from:

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moshimonster - Member

LoCo - Member

Where do you draw the line then? A GT3 RS 4.0 is most definitely a supercar by any standard. A cooking GT3 probably borderline, but I'd say it is. Have you driven a 991 GT3?, it's pretty f****** awesome.

Nothing based on a cooking saloon/coupe can really ever be called a supercar. An M3 GTS certainly isn't. It might have "supercar" performance, but it's not actually a supercar in my book.

IMO you don't draw the line based on performance at all, that'll always be changing. You can dismiss the M3 GTS out of hand because it's based on a coupe. A GT3, awesome as it is, is (just) a track focused 911 regardless of how fast it is.

In 25 years time will we look at it the way we currently view the 959? Certainly not. Today's 911 Turbo will trounce a 959 but park them side by side and see what attracts the attention.

You wouldn't look at a 348 Competizione as a super car today.

ir_bandito - Member

Here's a question, does anyone frequenting this forum own anything that could be honestly described as a "supercar"?

Oh lord no - In the dim and distant past (okay the early to mid 2000's) I worked in asset finance and specialised in expensive cars for our region - yes some of the things Ferrari, Lambo and the rest squat out do end up in the garages of properly rich people and lottery winners but the vast majority of them end up with 'merely' wealthy people who obsess about the colour and the options and the point in it's life cycle the mileage and the service history etc etc etc not because they're 'fussy' about them per se, but because the money involved is stupid and buying the wrong one at the wrong time can cost you fortunes - when they get them they agonise over it's care and well being, they're terrified of actually using it because mileage kills the value, but it's not nearly as expensive as servicing the things or heaven forbid putting tyres on them.

People day dream about racing "Builth to Machynlleth" or whatever but you simply can't, you'll be banned for life if you're caught going alone at what they're capable of, unless of course you find out you're not as capable of what your Ferrabo is and you hit someone then you'll go to prison.

Nor can you actually use them as a 'car' because the whole point of a car isn't to leave home, drive about for a bit and drive home again - no usually you need to go somewhere and you can't leave a supercar parked outside Aldi, not because someone might steal it or hurt it - even "nowadays" that's a pretty rare thing - no it's the fear of it that holds you back.

You might think "track day" and your insurance company will say "not on our policy" you'll need to pay a lot more for that, and if you do you'll be burning through tyres, clutches and depreciating it at such a horrible rate that the point of those non-road legal track day cars suddenly makes itself known.

The vast majority of my customers back then bought a 430, or a Gallardo or 911 GT2/3/RS or whatnot, spent 6 months not sleeping at night worrying about it and "got out of it" - they'd lose £20k - £40k in the process and in return got to spend the rest of their life telling people about the time they had a Ferrari.

The ones who kept them and changed them for another one a few years later fell into 2 groups, the ones who kept them in their garage and looked at them and did 2000 miles a year and the ones who spent the summer weekends cruising around at 20mph desperately trying to look nonchalant as they looked for people looking at them.

I got to drive quite a few, admittedly not very quickly or for long, they're not as 'otherworldly' as you might think and ultimately it's still only 'driving' which is pretty boring - honestly riding a MTB hard is twice as exciting as any supercar.

There's a chap who can occasionally be seen sat in his Ferrari in Asda carpark whilst presumably his wife shops. Sometimes he starts it and rawrs it up a bit.

Asda! 😆

How many bags of shopping can you get in a 430?! Perhaps they've got good deals on bubbly 😉

Presumably we now have to do a secret greeting now Slowoldman? Or was that just the I-Spy Club?

(How)

Anyway - enjoy this bit of nostalgia.
http://www.mikemercury.net/pilotslicence.html

I wish Surfmat hadn't flounced, he could quote performance figures for "super cars" then abuse you if you didn't agree with him 😆

Would far rather have [url= http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=31225 ]THIS[/url] than a Ferrari or any other Supercar, Ferrari performance with room for 2-3 bikes in the back. In fact I'd rather have one of these over almost any other car. Absolute bargain too, and £14k buys you a good one.

Supercars by definition are things to stare at rather than drive. An example:

Lambo frequent use rose jointed suspension pieces that have a service life of about 800 miles. A trip to Scotland and back, would need the suspension stripping and completely rebuilding. You couldn't, for instance drive to the south of France in your toy, as you'd invalidate the service intervals. But that doesn't matter, as Sir would have his Lambo either shipped to, or dive his other lambo once he is there.

No Porsche can ever be a supercar, simply by dint of the fact that when you want to start them, they mostly start...

No Nissan, Ford, Lexus, Honda car can ever be a supercar. (no mainstream manufacturer, in other words)

Has to make your girlfriend resent going out in it, because a) it won't get there, b) you won't/can't hear what she saying, and c) if she wears a short skirt, everyone at the restaurant will see her knickers.

Thems the rules.

rebel12 - Member

Would far rather have THIS than a Ferrari or any other Supercar, Ferrari performance with room for 2-3 bikes in the back. In fact I'd rather have one of these over almost any other car. Absolute bargain too, and £14k buys you a good one.

Riding mate of mine has one, shat it's gearbox 2 months after her bought it and cost him 3 grand to fix - perhaps they're supercars after all 😉

I think by definition a supercar can't be made by a mainstream high-volume manufacturer, so the R8 isn't one as it looks like every other Audi:

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The Lexus IFA is the exception that proves the rule.

IMO you don't draw the line based on performance at all, that'll always be changing. You can dismiss the M3 GTS out of hand because it's based on a coupe. A GT3, awesome as it is, is (just) a track focused 911 regardless of how fast it is.

This is the problem with trying to define something that is arbitrary. It just becomes totally pointless.

The vast majority of my customers back then bought a 430, or a Gallardo or 911 GT2/3/RS or whatnot, spent 6 months not sleeping at night worrying about it and "got out of it" - they'd lose £20k - £40k in the process and in return got to spend the rest of their life telling people about the time they had a Ferrari.

The ones who kept them and changed them for another one a few years later fell into 2 groups, the ones who kept them in their garage and looked at them and did 2000 miles a year and the ones who spent the summer weekends cruising around at 20mph desperately trying to look nonchalant as they looked for people looking at them.

I think your view might be slightly skewed from working in finance and perhaps by how you would like to perceive owners of expensive cars. I don't have any finance on my cars and don't mind driving them at all. Certainly haven't lost any sleep over a car. Friends who have much more expensive cars than I don't worry about them either. But again they don't need finance to buy them. If you go to a typical track day, you'll see plenty of exotic machinery being thrashed around by people who don't fall into any of your stereotypical groups above.

[i]The Lexus IFA is the exception that proves the rule.[/i]

no, it isn't, it fails the "will it start?" rule for a kick off.

No Nissan, Ford, Lexus, Honda car can ever be a supercar. (no mainstream manufacturer, in other words)

What would you class the Ford GT40 as then? Or the apparently-imminent Honda NSX? The Lexus has been covered, and that most definitely is a supercar by any definition of the word.

Would far rather have THIS than a Ferrari or any other Supercar, Ferrari performance with room for 2-3 bikes in the back. In fact I'd rather have one of these over almost any other car. Absolute bargain too, and £14k buys you a good one.

Very predictable but hardly the same driving experience. Apart from the straight-line grunt, they're actually pretty dull to drive compared to even modest sportscars.

moshimonster

This is the problem with trying to define something that is arbitrary. It just becomes totally pointless.

[url= https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&hs=mey&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&biw=1280&bih=640&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=internet+argument&oq=internet+argument&gs_l=img.3...0.0.2.186754.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..58.img..0.0.0.b2_yZZ-_ltM&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.80185997,d.d2s&dpr=1&ech=1&psi=zmBzVI7MJ4rxapXXgpAH.1416847567730.5&ei=_2BzVLmrOY7Vas_vgaAD&emsg=NCSR&noj=1 ]That's just like, your opinion man.[/url]

Riding mate of mine has one, shat it's gearbox 2 months after her bought it and cost him 3 grand to fix - perhaps they're supercars after all

Sounds unlucky. Better than loosing 3-4 grand in depreciation during the first year of ownership on say a new Mondeo or Passat though.

Apart from the straight-line grunt, they're actually pretty dull to drive compared to even modest sportscars.

Oh I don't know, have driven one and it's docile when you're not in the mood and a raging animal when you are. Does understeer a little but nothing that can't be easily sorted with a few suspension tweaks. Appreciate not quite as lively as a TVR or other RWD stuff, but it's unlikely to send you heading for the undergrowth at the merest hint of rain. You couldn't use most super cars every day now could you?

A friend of mine owned a TVR Chimera and a Mini Cooper S. The TVR was his dream car, but which did he enjoy driving most - yep, the Cooper S as the performance was far more useable day to day.

Neither, the GT40 is too old. the Honda NSX too easy to drive, and fails the "mainstream" and the "will it start" rules.

No Japanese car will ever really be a supercar, as fundamentally they don't understand the rules.

Supercars have to be mental. you can't drive them sensibly, you can't see out of them, they don't start, and they have to be uncomfortable, they have to be ridiculously overpriced and impractical. If you could drive it in the wet, it isn't a supercar.

no, it isn't, it fails the "will it start?" rule for a kick off.

All modern supercars fail that rule.

The Flying Ox - Member

No Nissan, Ford, Lexus, Honda car can ever be a supercar. (no mainstream manufacturer, in other words)

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