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:''This article is about roadgoing sports cars. For the type of motorsport, see Sports car racing.''


A 'sports car' is an automobile designed for performance driving. Most sports cars are rear-wheel drive, have two seats, two doors, and are designed for precise handling, acceleration, and aesthetics. A sports car's dominant considerations can be superior road handling, braking, maneuverability, low weight, and high power, rather than passenger space, comfort, and fuel economy.
Sports cars can be either luxurious^[1] or spartan, but driving mechanical performance is the key attraction. Drivers regard brand name and the subsequent racing reputation and history (for example, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus) as important indications of sporting quality, but brands such as Lamborghini, which do not race or build racing cars, are also highly regarded.
A car may be a ''sporting'' automobile without being a sports car. Performance modifications of regular, production cars, such as sport compacts, sports sedans, muscle cars, hot hatches and the like, generally are not sports cars, yet share traits common to sports cars. Often, performance cars of all configurations are grouped as ''Sports and GT cars'', or, occasionally, as ''performance cars''.
A sports car does not require a large, powerful engine, though many do have them. Some classic British sports cars lacked powerful engines, but were known for exceptional handling due to light weight, a well-engineered, balanced chassis, and modern suspension. On tight, twisting roads, such an automobile performs more effectively than a heavier, more powerful luxury car with less maneuverability.
Due to North American safety regulations, many sports cars are unavailable for sale or use in the United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle Eastern market (''e.g.'' UAE), a flexible attitude towards small-volume specialist manufacturers has allowed companies such as TVR, Noble, and Pagani to succeed.

Contents

Layout

Seating

Examples

See also

References

External links

Layout

The drive train and engine layout determine the handling characteristics of an automobile, and is the point of the design of a sports car.
The front-engine, rear-wheel drive train layout (FR layout) is common to sports cars of any era. This configuration has survived longer in sports cars than in mainstream automobiles, because of performance, handling, cost, and packaging. Current examples include the Caterham 7, Mazda MX-5, and the Chevrolet Corvette.
In search of improved handling and weight distribution, other formats have been tried. The RMR layout is commonly found only in sports cars — the motor is centre-mounted in the chassis (closer to and behind the driver), and powers only the rear wheels. High-performance sports car and supercar manufacturers, such as Ferrari and Lamborghini prefer this layout. Many modern cars, especially grand tourers, also use a FMR layout, with the motor sitting between the front axle and the firewall.
Porsche is one of the few, remaining manufacturers using the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout (RR layout). The motor's distributed weight across the wheels, in a Porsche 911, provides excellent traction, but is not ideal, as the engine's weight is not between the two axles; the vehicle is poorly balanced, thus, many early Porsches handled twitchily. Yet, Porsche have continuously refined the design and, in recent years, combined engineering modifications and electronic driving aids (i.e. computerised traction-stability control) to counteract inherent design shortcomings.
Some sport cars have used the front-engine, front-wheel drive layout (FF), e.g. Lotus Elan M100, Fiat Coupé, Fiat Barchetta, Saab Sonett, and many Berkeley cars. This layout is advantageous for small, light, lower power sports cars, as it avoids the extra weight, increased transmission power loss, and packaging problems of a long driveshaft and longitudinal engine of FR vehicles. Yet, its conservative handling effect, particularly understeer, and the fact that many drivers believe FR is a more appropriate layout for a sports car makes this layout atypical to high-performance sports cars. The FF layout, however, is common in sport compacts and hot hatches, such as the Honda Civic Si and Type-R, the Volkswagen Golf GTi which are not necessarily sports cars.
Before the 1980s few sports cars used four wheel drive, which had traditionally added a lot of weight. Not a sports car, but the Audi Quattro, with coaxial driveshafts, proved its worth in rallying, and with the added advantage of all-weather traction ability and advantage. Four wheel drive is now common in high-powered sports cars, including Porsche, Lamborghini, and the Bugatti Veyron (currently holds the world speed record for 407 km/h (252 mph) supercar.

Seating

Some sports cars have small back seats that are really only suitable for luggage or small children. Such a configuration is often referred to as a 2+2 (two full seats + two "occasional" seats). The Mazda RX-8 includes two small backward-opening doors to better accommodate extra passengers.
Over the years, some manufacturers of sports cars have sought to increase the practicality of their vehicles by increasing the seating room. One method is to place the driver's seat in the center of the car, which allows two full-sized passenger seats on each side and slightly behind the driver. The arrangement was originally considered for the Lamborghini Miura, but abandoned as impractical because of the difficulty for the driver to enter/exit the vehicle. McLaren used the design in their supercar F1.
Another British manufacturer, TVR, took a different approach in their Cerbera model. The interior was designed in such a way that the dashboard on the passenger side swept toward the front of the car, which allowed the passenger to sit farther forward than the driver. This gave the rear seat passenger extra room and made the arrangement suitable for three adult passengers and one child seated behind the driver. The arrangement has been referred to by the company as a 3+1. Some Matra sports cars even had three seats squeezed next to each other.

Examples

Main articles: List of sports car manufacturers

In addition to specialist sports car marques, almost all major car manufacturers make some form of high performance car, such as Ford with the GT, Mazda with the RX-8, BMW M Cars, Chevrolet with the Corvette, Honda with its NSX, Nissan with the Z-car, Toyota with the MR2, and Mercedes-Benz with the sports division AMG.

See also

★ 0 to 60 mph

★ Car and Driver

★ Car safety

★ Grand tourer

★ Hot hatch

★ Muscle car

★ Roadster

★ Sport compact

★ Sports car racing

★ Sports sedan

★ Supercar

References

1. 10Best Cars: Best Luxury Sports Car Csaba Csere and Tony Swan

External links

★ Road legal sports car lap times and comparison feature "Which is faster?"

★ Information, pictures and video of over 450 sports cars