True, true. But the 205 finished what the Golf started, Your examples all came much later.
In 1987, a 130 BHP 205 GTI could be yours, and it would beat almost anything on a bendy road. Fenomenal little car.
Oh Baby. oh baby. The C-6 is oh so very very. It has an onboard lateral g-force monitor, It’s trimmer and shorter so it’s worthy of European speedracers.
While I had my 2000 C-5 in for maintaince, I was looking at the brochures. A sales reptile slithered up to sell me one. He told me it was the very first Corvette without tilt-up headlights. :dubious: I think they had him put tp sleep.
As far as worst, I don’t know if you folks would qualify the '86 Camero as a “sportscar” but the one I had was so bad, I’m sure it was haunted. Among many other things, the rear-end fell off, boom, on the ground at 12,020 miles. And the speedometer blew up! Don’t argue, it did. Black, no needles.
A friend of mine many years ago had a Lancia by Fiat. I never rode in it. I dated him for almost a year, and it was in the shop most of that time. Of course, Fiat is an acronym for “Fix It Again, Tony.”
Since when is having two seats, two doors, and no hatch a prerequisite for a sports car?
Is anyone going to deny that a WRX STI is a sports car? It has four doors and four seats. Our Saab is a sports car, but I suppose you could call it a ‘hot hatch’. But it does 0-60 in under 6 seconds, the quarter in low 14’s, it has all-wheel drive and huge brakes, a 5-speed, and pedals set up for heel-toe driving. It’s built on a WRX chassis with STi parts. It’s a sports car.
It’s not the number of doors, or whether it has a hatch. It’s whether or not the car is fun to drive and capable of being driven fast with a high degree of control. That’s it. Everything else is posing.
If Indy Car designers discovered that the best shape for winning races was a three-box body with four doors and a big flat nose with a vortex generator on the tip, they’d all be driving what looked like Bentleys. What a car looks like is irrelevant. It’s what it’s capable of doing.
And there are different types of ‘sports cars’. How is racing the 1/4 mile any less ‘sporting’ than going around an oval track? Or driving a rally?
A sports car is a car that is driven not just to get from A to B, but for pure joy. An MG is a sports car not because it is particularly fast, but because it’s very sporting to drive down a country lane in it with the top down. It’s an end unto itself, outside of any considerations of practicality. That describes everything from a Ferrari Enzo to a Subaru WRX, or even a Jeep Liberty, assuming you rock crawl with one.
And the line is getting blurrier as more and more cars take on sporting qualities. Is an Infiniti G35 a sports car? They are very capable road machines, but you don’t see them entered in SCCA events. No one really engages in ‘sport’ with them, but they are supremely capable driving machines. But the focus is to get you where you’re going in more style or with more pleasure, but not in driving for its own sake, as recreation.
Yeah. I think the best definition of a sports car is one that’s designed to be FUN TO DRIVE at the expense of isolation and cushiness. Doesn’t matter if it’s got four doors. Doesn’t matter if it’s got five seats. I think that a good definition includes the Dodge Neon ACR and excludes the Lexus SC430.
How about an electric sports car? Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Venturi Fetish. It’s built in Monaco!
Partly to answer your question, and partly to simply throw a couple of definitions into the thread…
Like the dictionary entry, I often see speed as a defined parameter of a sports car. The Wikipedia article, though perhaps not as authoritative as a dictionary or a ‘real’ encylopedia, offers this:
I think that is accurate. As has been mentioned before, earlier sports cars were not especially fast or powerful.
But back to ‘hot hatches’. Wikipedia says:
So yeah, I’d call the WRX a ‘hot hatch’ instead of a ‘sports car’.
I’d call those totally arbitrary distinctions. The WRX has a long, distinguished history winning rally races. It’s faster and handles better than many ‘sports cars’ on the road. It has sport buckets, a five-speed, and pedals set up for heel-toe driving. It’s a sports car.
Who cares whether or not it originated as something else, or whether a de-rated version is sold as a family vehicle? That just means the platform is versatile. The Dodge Neon SRT-4 is a sports car, and yet it’s based on a cheap entry level econobox. But if you attent SCCA events, you’ll see scads of SRT-4’s and WRXs racing. They’re both sports cars. Both of them have thousands of dollars worth of parts that have one purpose only - to make the car go faster and handle better. Either of these cars would absolutely spank say, a Porsche 924 or a DeLorean. But they get to be sports cars because they ‘look like sports cars’? That’s just not a serious distinction, in my book.
A sports car is a car used for sport. Whether it has two doors, four doors, or a hatch is merely an exercise in styling. And styling has nothing to do with car sports, and everything to do with wanting to be seen in a ‘sports car’.
The Austin Mini had a fine record in rallies and races. But is it a sports car? The Datsun 510 did well, too. Is it a sports car? Any number of cars can be and have been used for sport, but they’re not sports cars by (the admittedly loose) definition.
If either of those cars came from the factory with the pieces needed for them to race, I’d say yes. If not, I’d say no.
But this is probably a silly argument. There is no formal definition of ‘sports car’, so there’s no hard and fast rule we can apply. Is a Chrysler 300C SRT8 a sports car? It was definitely built for going fast. It’s thousands of dollars more expensive than the standard version of the car. It has 425HP. How about a Buick Grand National GNX? If not, how is it any different than say, a Dodge Superbird? That car was specifically built for only one reason - to go fast on a track. It didn’t even run that well on the street. and was only sold in enough numbers to qualify the manufacturer for production class racing. Yet it’s a big heavy car based on a mundane everyday vehicle.
All those semantics debates are nice, and there’s certainly enough definitions to go round.
But a WRX is a sedan. A damn fast one with a great rallying pedigree, but it’s not a sports car! Let alone “the worst sports car”, which is what this thread was once about. 
It’s got a back seat, a big boot, cup holders, and air conditioning. It’s not a sports car. 
I can’t have either. I’m gettin’ a race kart.
All you peoples bitching about what is and is not a ‘true’ sportscar have it all wrong. You CAN enjoy a 90 rwhp Miata and still enjoy a 450 rw-torque heavily modded Corvette.
Then you can get on a track, think you’re all that, and realize you don’t even rate compared to the $2500 kart some guy picked up second hand. He paid less for it that you pay for two sets of tires, and drives all day long on $5 worth of gas.
If your race team has exactly one sponsor, it’s hard to have more fun than a kart.
And those that say you can’t have a FWD racecar? Try a Cooper S for a bit.
Hate the engieneering and electrics on a Brit car? Some folks prefer working on 'em to driving them. My 89 Corvette is practically new under the panels. There’s a big hole in my soul because all the big projects are done. 
I read a book that said that Pontiac had trouble finding space for the oil pan, and the Fiero was dangerously low on oil. This helped it have a fire for every 5000 or so cars, which is completely outrageous.
I guess we’re just going to have to disagree. A WRX Sti is also a sedan - a sedan wtih huge Brembo brakes, 300HP, AWD, which does 0-60 in less than five seconds and the 1/4 mile in 13.4. Everyone who buys one buys it because they want to drive fast. It’s a sports car.
BTW, the World Rally Championships are almost totally dominated by four-door or hatchback cars. By declaring that these are not sports cars, you’re excluding almost every car driven in one of the most popular auto sports. Does that seem right to you?
The Lancia Delta S4, a four-door hatchback rally car, could do 0-60 in 2.3 seconds on gravel. You’re telling me that’s not a sports car, just because it happens to have four doors?
Small nitpick: the S4 is the one with TWO doors.
I’m not slagging any of those rally monsters, they’re great. And a Delta Integrale is a downright rocket even in road trim.
I’m just saying that to ME, the term “sports car” has different connotations. IMHO, it means a two door RWD (or maybe AWD) car with great handling and a manual gearbox.
To you, it means something else. That is fine. It’s not a judgement call on a WRX, an Integrale, or whatever one would come up with. They’re all great. Just not sports cars to me.
This is my old girl. http://202.83.95.2/lkmbws/_Gloria.jpg Easily one of the most over-rated sports cars of all time. Her name’s Gloria by the way. When I first got her she had 14" Magnum 500 steel wheels on 185/70 rubber. The suspension parts were old and rusted. You know the drill.
Some $25,000 later she has all aluminum everything, from harmonic balancer thru to flywheel thru to driveshaft thru to third member. All tubular rose-ball joint roller bearing suspension throughout. Carbon fibre leaf springs and a Watts Link on the rear. Double wishbone coil-overs on the front. Big 17" wheels, 225/50 rubber, lots of horespower, brand new rack and pinion steering… 13" rotors all round, Brembo calipers on the front etc etc.
Suffice to say, Gloria is NO LONGER one of the most over-rated sports cars in history. She is now a dirty, dirty flirt of the most sensational order. My 3 year old daughter even asks me to take her for drives, such is the intoxicating addiction you get from it. Quiet country roads, or crowded walking pace bright lights. It’s all magnificent fun.
And ya gotta love that, huh? Gloria is a very accurate reflection of her owner I reckon; slightly old; very, VERY capable; and simply sex on a stick!
Man, that’s a beautiful car.
Thanks Sam. Only 58,000 miles genuine. Here’s another shot of the interior from 12 months ago on my daughter’s Madeleine’s 2nd birthday. Someone did some nice upholstery work it seems at some point in the history of the car. I bought the car unseen from an elderly Italian gent in Miami in July 2003 and shipped her on a freighter down here to Australia. Someone has REALLY looked after her over the years. Absolutely mint.
My point I guess is this… I posted about Gloria not so much to have a brag, but rather, to point out that pretty well any car can be made to be way wicked. Ultimately, the factory could have done it too except there’s always a price/cost compromise, y’know? Clearly, if money is no object, hey get your exotica. Go nuts.
I’ll say this about the classic 60’s muscle cars however… there is currently a HUGE market for restoring them and fitting uber wicked modern suspension systems. Some of those systems are simply bolt on, some of 'em require cutting and welding. Whatever, these old classics are getting entirely new leases of life and they FUCKING FLY. They go unbelievably fast, and they also corner, and they stop - on a dime. I can safely say that my Mustang would have easily beaten the pants off anything which was originally released by the Ford or Shelby factorys.
And it doesn’t matter what your poison is, either. If you’re a MOPAR fan, or a Pontiac fan, or a Camaro fan, whatever… out there somewhere are at least 3 companies making state of the art suspension systems PRECISELY for your model. Get a modern ultra lightweight engine rebuild and you’ve got yourself the best car in the world - custom made just for you.
Roger that! I woke up one morning to realise that, under the mottled exterior, my Project car’s internals all had less than 4000 miles on it. Now I can drive it without prejudice as when it’s stopped, it’s just another beater vette. I dunno WHAT I’ll do when it gets paint and a new top. (Hope it looks half as good as yer Gloria there!)