# What exactly makes a car "sporty" and makes crossovers not sporty?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 27, 2022, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205 "2022-02-27T23:47:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205/21 "2022-03-02T23:16:13Z")

</div>

> [@Balthisar](#):
>
> What happens when all/most sports cars are electric?

I said right on this board a month ago “I want an electric Miata.”

If I was filthy rich, I’d buy a first-gen Miata and drop a peppy long-range electric motor in it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205/22 "2022-03-02T23:25:50Z")

</div>

> [@digs](#):
>
> If I was filthy rich, I’d buy a first-gen Miata and drop a peppy long-range electric motor in it.

If you were filthy rich you could just buy a Tesla Roadster, which is pretty much the closest thing to an electric Miata.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205/23 "2022-03-02T23:40:40Z")

</div>

In the first couple of minutes of this classic movie, they mention modifying the Nissan’s shock absorbers, tyres, engine, intercooler, etc. I’m sure real gearheads have a whole list of tweaks above and beyond buying whatever is sold to regular consumers.

[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Vib_wje7jdw/hqdefault.jpg "Racing:Freeway Speedway Trial 1 1988 FULL MOVIE ENG SUB") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vib_wje7jdw)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205/24 "2022-03-08T16:41:22Z")

</div>

> [@WildaBeast](#):
>
> If I understand the patent correctly, it sounds like there aren’t any real gears, but moving the gearshift changes the amount of torque the electric motor produces, which simulates the feel of a manual transmission. Or if you don’t want to shift, you can put it in “gearless” mode and the car operates like a normal EV.

I’m really struggling here attempting to decipher what the purpose is here. An electric motor is going to have max torque available throughout it’s entire RPM band - adding a complicated manual control input system to to artificially limit and then de-limit the torque just seems like a whole lot of complexity for no actual purpose.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-makes-a-car-sporty-and-makes-crossovers-not-sporty/960205.md?page=1)