Supercars are designed to be fast and pretty

Performance does have implications for the practical soccer mom car. While it is not the primary consideration, driving a car that is highly underpowered, or has scary handling (lots of body roll or dive), or has poor braking can be both annoying and dangerous.

And I second (fifth?) the OP. It would be dumb to go to a guitar convention and tell people that the distinctions between instruments are meaningless because you can’t form a band without a singer. I question why he needs 3 posts to state the fact that he disdains sports cars.

GT40 is on my shopping list, by the way. Metallic Navy Blue with tan interior. White stripes.

nah , Id save the LRM’s and go with the cannons

Declan

Whaddya mean no utility?

Men who drive flash cars really ARE more attractive to women, say Welsh academics

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Reminds me of a Top Gear episode that pissed me off. Jeremy reviews a pickup truck with his usual anti-American bias. Criticizing pickups as being impractical for a typical Englishman’s lifestyle is perfectly alright. Calling a pickup truck rubbish because it drives like a truck and not a sportscar is stupid.

IIRC Clarkson was not criticising the handling of that pick up because it compared badly to a sportscar, he was criticising it because although it has over 300bhp, the amount of play in the steering was ridiculous. One assumes that he expects a vehicle with this amount of power to at least be readily controlled.

He also criticised it for things like the interior rattling, not fitting together, and not matching.The rubbish suspension also compromised the handling, and the build quality is poor - which is not something you would want in a vehicle that costs this amount of money.

I have not criticised sportscars in terms of their abilities to carry out their particular task, more its a case of criticising the task that does not need to be carried out in the first place.

Do we need trivial cars that can go fast, around corners very quickly? There are some spectacular examples of such triviality, vehicles that cannot actually carry out their intended function on the road - unless you decide that speed limits are for others - the road isn’t your personal racetrack.

If you want a racetrack car, then put it on a racetrack, however I strongly suspect that there are not enough tracks to accomodate all such vehicles in circulation, and the truth is that only a vanishingly small number of these sportscars will ever see a closed circuit - so what we have are objects that are deeemed to be of great desire, that are used for situations for which they were not designed.

This then reduces these objects into decorations. The aesthetics of what is beautiful and what is not is merely an opinion.

Many of these vehicles are rubbish on city streets, heavy clutches, useless for crawling along in queues due to the grabby nature of the transmission, poor rear visibility, and at the low speed found in much city traffic they are often lumpen objects, and yet this is where the vast majority will spend their days.

These things are just daydreams, beautiful daydreams, useless daydreams, and rarely used for the purpose for which they were designed.

Now if you are one of those who put such a vehicle on a trailer, travel down the motorway to Donington Park, unload it and then do a number of laps on a trackday then fine, you have a legitimate stake in them, otherwise you are just another daydreamer.

Out of all the vehicles that can just about cross from the track blast to a practical vehicle, I’d say the best at it would probably be Porcshe, though the BMW M series are very nearly as good - but the out and out supercars are just exhibits.

Quite honestly, if you want that sort of fun, why not just hire one for the day and go on a trackday - you’d get the anticipation of the event, you’d get the chance to drive it in the way it was intended, and ultimately you will not get the precipitous depreciation or the practical problems of day to day ownership, and finally, you would still get the escapism, which is what these cars are all about.

You can then drive home in the comfort of your roadcar, doing what it was designed to do.

A truck has that kind of power to haul shit. Not to handle at speed. A truck handles like a truck. To expect anything different is ridiculous. I didn’t mention the other things that he mentioned because they would be valid criticisms if true. I myself have never seen a new truck that had the interior problems that that one had but I can only assume they weren’t being dishonest. I am not a truck owner. I see their utility and would own one as a second or third vehicle if I could afford to have cars that I only use occasionally. So I wasn’t personally offended. But it did show his prejudices and also seemed to be similar to what the OP was talking about.

What a load of rubbish. Their purpose is to be driven by those that can afford them and appreciate them. One doesn’t have to drive a supercar at 10/10ths. on local roads to enjoy them, nor does one have to be stuck in a Trabant because anything more is unusable in local traffic.

I know a guy, a commercial real estate developer, who uses either an AMG 65 or an Aston Martin Vanquish as his daily driver because he likes them, enjoys their appearance and because he can. When he wants to go really fast and corner hard, he takes his Porsche GT3 to Road Atlanta.

Drive what you like and like what you drive, but please don’t slam those that choose to take a supercar for a grocery run. That you find it impractical is fine, but it doesn’t make it a fact.

The main thrust of this thread is that I am alleged to be criticising something for not being good at something it was not designed to be.

The fact that these things are designed for speed and cornering and are hardly ever used in that role seems to have passed you by. These are very often rubbish road cars at road speeds, they are designed for an environment that they rarely enounter.

Your comment that you do not have to drive them at 10/10ths to enjoy them is the point isn’t it? This is what they were designed for, the GT40 certainly was, there are other cars that are far better and more useful than these very rarified vehicles for streetwork.

If they are all about looks and cost, it isn’t hard to make a car the looks good, and costs a whole lot, but would they sell? A big part of the appeal is the power and handling - the largely unexplored potential. Would your friend be interested in an Aston Martin Vantage if it had half the power - which would be plenty for the road? I Doubt it.

The Aston Martin Vantage and the AMG65, powerful as they are, simply ain’t sportscars either. Way I see it, if he does his fast drives at Road Altlanta, then thats one of his forms of escapism, and its what supercars were designed to do, I don’t see any issue with that, its the streetcar dreamer that is my target. Maybe there are wannabees who would love to do what he does, and they can if they hire something like a Caterham for a trackday, or save up and hire a Ferrari for the day.

It’s like keeping a race bred arab stallion, then using it to haul a coal cart around - what’s the point? Yeah it still looks magnificent, but what a waste.

This is the same Jeremy Clarkson who once called the Subaru Outback “the perfect vehicle”, isn’t it? Not to mention his feelings towards the Toyota Hilux.

No, the Top Gear blokes are in no way biased against practical vehicles; nor are they afraid to make fun of supercars, as anyone who’s seen them tray to get three of them out of a Parisian parking garage will know. If Jeremy had issues with the F-150, they were probably valid.

Casdave, I believe that guy would have bought the Vanquish with half the power because it is such a looker- that bright silver paint is worth the price of admission alone. I know I would if I could afford it! The new DB9, meh… but the Vanquish is just right.
I also think that the manufacturers would take into account the fact that most owners would never get their chariots close to full performance potential- who does on a daily basis?- and so design their cars to offer acceptable performance across the spectrum with the benefit of them truly shining at full song.

But in the end, it is all about perceptions and opinions and I will happily cede that you have yours and I have mine and to each their own.

Happy motoring!

Actually, I think you’re being criticized for being an asshole.

Statements like this:

Yes, my Ascari A-10 doesn’t pick up the groceries well. But why the fuck do you care? Why do you give a shit if my buddy and I discuss the relative merits of his Koenigsegg versus my Veyron? Does their mere existence burn your soul? Is “trivial” a factual description, or are you actually making a judgment about supercars and people who like them?

What it sounds like is that you have a personal axe to grind, whether sour grapes or just disdain for people having what you think is a “stupid” hobby. You probably have interests that other people find stupid, and maybe you even post threads about them. I might think soccer (football to you) is rubbish (to use your vernacular) but I don’t hop in threads where you talk about your love for Wigan and gurn about how the differences between the clubs are merely aesthetic and trivial because a bunch of overpaid blokes kicking around a ball isn’t very useful when you go to Tesco to pick up a curry mix. Mate.