BBC America's version of Top Gear is a mixed blessing. I'm not happy how they edit the episodes– like removing the Cock-O-Meter sequence entirely from the M3, AMG C63, RS4 comparo (if Americans hear the word "cock" we'll drop dead). So I've spent six months of my life watching every single second of Top Gear on YouTube. Only now BBC shows 'em in high def. My point? Last night I watched the episode featuring Jezza making love to the Ascari A10. In case you haven't heard, the manic, shed-built Ascari can hit 60 mph in 2.8 seconds (that's faster than a Veyron), weighs less than 3000 pounds and de-perched the Koeniggsegg CCX from atop of the fastest Top Gear lap time board. And I couldn't have cared less. Am I getting old? Are there just too damn many of them these days? Or is Mike Bumbeck right: supercars are for people who can't drive?
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Bumbeck has it right. Porn.
Supercars have just changed. I do think that design has not moved very far forward since the Countach. The new revolution is materials; I am in love with the Caparo.
For me it all changed the first time a drove a 911 that you simply pointed and shot, which was in the early ’90s, a Turbo. Up until then, 911s were fun (which is why mine is a quarter-century old).
Point being, what’s the fun in that?
I’ve never cared for supercars, personally. I’ve just never gotten much of a rise out of cars that “everyone” “knows” are awesome.
I much prefer affordable hidden gems.
I live in pennsylvania.. We have so many potholes that super cars wouldn’t be so super to drive anyway. Plus I just can’t afford one.
95% of these cars are going into somebody’s collection. They’ll see the light of day at yearly shows and auctions when the market is right.
The few that do get driven in the “real” world will spend most of their time in valet parking. The Ascari’s 0-60 time means nothing parked in front of Spagos.
Why get excited over a garage queen most of us will never own or drive? Say what you want about a 350Z or Mustang- most of us have the assets necessary to get sideways in one.
RX-8 = practical, affordable sports car with its own engine and chassis that most of the world ignores.
Supercars are street cars for the track and track cars for the street. By their nature they are compromised and goofy.
Once I was old enough to actually drive cars, supercars rarely thrilled me. Yes they are insanely fast and amazing to drive at the top end, but when the hell am I going to get to do that?
In the real world you instead get a huge but cramped car that has crap sightlines, suspension that abuses you, a thirsty motor, and a higher than average chance of bursting into flames. *cough*Ferrari*cough*
Give me a car that is a blast to drive AND usable in the real world and thats the one for me.
Or just give me a normal car and I’ll prove its more fun to go fast in a slow car than slow in a fast car.
I stopped paying attention when it seemed like any deep-pocketed individual in BFE, Poland/Sweden/UK/US could just mix and match parts from other cars and call it a day. They’re sort of like homebuilt aircraft (I spent a lot of time at EAA fly-ins as a kid)–very cool to look at, but the lust factor just isn’t reall there for me.
Besides, they’re all trumped by various versions of the Se7en, to varying degrees and with greater affordability and practicality.
I like them in video games. Drive a Koeniggsegg around the Nurburgring in my living room? Oh yes please. But they have no real-world relevance to my life. They’re not even especially interesting from a technical standpoint; a Prius is a far more advanced machine than an Ascari.
And why bother with a supercar when you can just go to a racetrack? I find racing machines infinitely more interesting than these supercars. If you’re going to fall in love with an impractical and unattainable automobile, you might as well go whole hog. Audi R10 TDI, anybody?
you need to ask this question of a 10,11,12,or 13 year old…
i would hope that super cars are still relevant for them…
at the age of 14,15,16, they stopped being relevant to me…
I like the name Ascari. I wanted to name our daughter Ascari — before the car came out — but my wife nixed the idea.
I think to be a supercar, you have to (a) be beautiful and (b) perform better than a $70K Porsche, ‘Vette, Lotus or Nissan.
That sets the bar pretty high these days.
What’s killed the supercar for me is the everydaycar. Cars handle, stop, and go so well that really, a there difference isn’t as striking as when I was a kid, and Countach/F40/959 could do things that hadn’t been done before. The McLaren F1 and Veyron are the only cars that are truly impressive in their capabilities. But when a “lowly” Evo at 30k can match or exceed most performance marks set by most cars costing 5x as much, what’s the point? Oh yeah…gotta show that money off somehow.
If you want to race, get a go-kart; the barrier for entry doesn’t keep talent out of the equation. If you want to race on the streets, don’t.
The relevance for me dipped substantially when I first moved to LA – there I was in my beat up Toyota Taco keeping pace with a car literally 100 times more expensive. When the freedom of the open road becomes the tyranny of the stop-and-go, priorities change.
The problem with supercars is their target market. The majority of driving enthusiasts can’t or won’t buy them, and the majority of people who can and will buy them aren’t driving enthusiasts. There is some overlap for sure, but not enough for me to stomach the idea of buying one.
Cars are kind of a funny thing in Manhattan. For many car owners here (myself included) they are purely discretionary leisure items, not daily transportation. Now, “leisure” means different things to different people. For some, it is an appliance to get them back and forth to a country home, and possibly do things like carry potting soil or haul a boat. For others, it is the pleasure one gets from the very act of driving. And for most (IMHO), it is driving around on evenings and weekends, showing off your ride like a douchebag.
Me? I like to drive, and I don’t particularly like to look like a douchebag while doing it, thank you very much. So while I respect the owners of the various Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis and Astons that I’ve seen parked on the street or in garage after garage (okay, I really don’t respect them), I will – and do – take my S4 wagon over any of their rides. No, it’s not a supercar, and it won’t win a race against any car worth racing, but its handling limits far exceed my own, it has silly power, and at high revs it makes sweet, sweet music, all in a perfectly humble and practical package. What more do I really need or want from a car?
Maybe if I lived somewhere else a supercar wouldn’t come with so much baggage. But I doubt it – probably the only thing more douchbaggy than being part of a supercar-owning herd is being “that guy” who owns the only stupid-expensive car in town.
I like that they exist, but that’s about all. They are curiosities and I don’t keep up with the latest and greatest, but it’s neat to see one every now and then even if you can make all kinds of assumptions about the type of person driving it.
Affordable and fast cars are the new supercars. Instead of posters on our walls, there are the actual cars in our garages. The simple truth is that “exotic” technology can be attained in reasonably-priced machines. Behold the EVO/STi all-wheel-drive phenomenon. Or the hot hatch market. Cheap Power? 300hp for $25k (stang), 362hp for $30k(G8), 430hp for $40k (vette), 480hp for $54k (C63), 600hp for $84k (viper). Then take into account the aftermarket, which has declined a bit, but still a popular option to “make your own” 800+hp supercar.
We’re in a world where an allegedly stock $70k Nissan can lap the Nurburgring faster than the best metal coming from Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche, and a Mitsubishi Evo can keep up with a Murcielago. Bang-for-buck daily drivers have replaced mortgage-payment garage-queen hypercars.
To the average gearhead, this is great. Forget the rich guys. We can now get 90% of their cars’ capabilities for a quarter of the price.
Super, duper..
My definition of a super car is a CAR that can:
– get me fast and safe where I need to be;
– be able to carry my family of 5 with their gear;
– be reliable;
– do 25-30 mpg;
– have a sun roof for summer days and traction control for winter days;
– cost me a little over it’s life time.
That my friends is a super CAR. Anything else is just “another car” for me.
I’m with Michael K on this one — affordable hidden gems are more interesting for me.
Besides, what about the social element of supercar ownership? Does anybody with whom one would like to associate drive a supercar? Cocaine-fueled celebs like Jay Kay, gangster rappers and pimps — hello? Oh yes, there’s Jay Leno, but I can’t think of anybody else; even Rowan Atkinson has gotten all normal, car-wise.
Well, supercars are generally the stuff of teenagers’ wet dreams, so as we grow, erm, more mature, they seem less interesting than hot cars we can actually hope to own one day.
To be honest, the only “supercars” I like are the ones that look good. I have more respect for an F430 than for a Koniggsegg, on the sole basis of its superior appearance.
But I know a lot more about an RS4 that I do about either.
Joshvar :
May 5th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
What’s killed the supercar for me is the everydaycar. Cars handle, stop, and go so well that really, a there difference isn’t as striking as when I was a kid, and Countach/F40/959 could do things that hadn’t been done before.
For the last year or so I’ve been wishing that someone would take the “average” american car and figure out how far back in time it would be competitive on a race track.
My guess is that a V6 Camry would be competitive in touring car races until the late 60’s and competitive with anything but super-exotic stuff until the early 60’s.
130mph top speed, decent brakes and handling and acceleration, good fuel economy and tire wear at high speeds… I can’t imagine that a 1959 Corvette would be faster than a 2008 Camry.
Would one of you with a deeper knowledge base tell me how far off I am?
You’ve all missed it! Supercars are superstars, supermodels, supernovas. They transcend practicality, even desirability. It is enough for supercars to exist; they needn’t be owned, or even driven. They are abstract.
As Oscar Wilde wrote, “We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.”
I hope they never stop building them, but with affordable performance so readily available (as others have noted), their attraction is more in their exclusivity than anything else. I must admit idling at a stop light next to a 360 Spyder is sort of neat, I am glad the guy can afford it – and I can look at it. But for $12k you can buy a vehicle that does 0-60 in 3 seconds, does 180mph and gets close to 40mpg. And requires real skill to operate. See your local Honda motorcycle shop, a CBR1000 awaits you. But, um, maybe a few years of less powerful bikes first….
No not really. Super cars of old used to be about pushing the envelope of engineering to advance the craft. To some degree the Veyron still fits that bill but for the most part the craft has avanced so far that just about anyone with enough money can build one by bolting together some third party parts. Instead of a market segment geared at racing purists it has become the domain of bored millionaires who crave exclusivity rather than driving enjoyment.
What excited me these days are the engineering challenges to make a car that is fun, light, fast, efficient, affordable and safe. After all it’s not much of a engineeering feat to produce a fast car if the consumer price tag can be $500K and it barely gets 4 MPG.
I am way more interested in Nissan’s and Toyota’s new small RWD coupe development than I am in the next big thing from Ferrari.
I have to wonder just how much fun a supercar really is. And I’m not talking about when it’s stuck in traffic – no car is fun then – but when it’s on a windy mountain road or some other real-world driving paradise. Is a six-digit car really that much fun over a car a tenth of its price? From what I understand, cars at that speed are crazy scary to drive, especially if they don’t have traction control. And I don’t know about you, but unless it has EVO level electronics keeping me on the road, I’m not even going to come close to its limits.
And if that’s the case, what’s the point. I recently test drove a s2000 and I really can’t imagine needing anything more than that. Maybe I could go as high as a Lotus or a Boxter but that’s it. After all, if you’re going to get a car as impractical as a supercar, shouldn’t the fun factor be priority one, even over power numbers and bragging rights? And if it’s not, then what’s the point?
Both. While it is slightly exhilirating to watch a speed record being broken, it gets to the point of “ok, so who HASN’T beaten a speed record”. So they’re all trying to outdo each other making cars that only .001% of the population will drive. That seems like a shitty business model to me, but what do I know, I’m a college student that will drool over a muscle car before a super car any day.
We need supercars. These are like the automotive equivalent of a Playboy centerfold.
What I am bored with is the endless quest for ever-quicker zero-60 times and higher top speeds. I know we need to “know” what these cars can do, but can anyone truly sense the 0.5-second difference there is between a 4.3-second car (Ferrari F430) and a 3.8-second car (Nissan GT-R)? Don’t lie to me.
And of course top speeds are academic, velocities most drivers just cannot handle safely. I’m not being a prude here, but doing 100 mph+ over the double-nickel on a public road is just too stupid for words. 50 mph+ is OK
I know we need to “know” what these cars can do, but can anyone truly sense the 0.5-second difference there is between a 4.3-second car (Ferrari F430) and a 3.8-second car (Nissan GT-R)? Don’t lie to me.
The massive hole in your wallet clearly adds that half-second back in weight savings, alone.
super cars = meh
Good for young boys posters for their rooms.
I think slobbering over supercars is dreadfully ’80s. Even the aspiration to actually own a supercar is probably 10% passion for automobiles and 90% hey-everybody-look-how-rich-I-am douchebaggery. With the advent of the affordable stock go-mobile (WRX, MS3) I think people are less focused on dreaming of having the excesses of the ultra-wealthy and more concerned with getting their kicks in real life.
I think, societally, due to numerous factors (the decline of the middle class, the decline of the US reputation, a lack of a feel-good Reagan type of president or at least a Clinton that can handle the economy and make us all feel rich) we are becoming less focused on how to look like the richest guy in the world and more focused on how to live comfortable happy lives. Actually, that’s probably just me… anyway, boo supercars, gimme a Rex any day.
I like how fast cars solve problems. Fast cars have advanced chassis designs that can be used in future common cars. Same for engines and suspensions. Hyper cars basically make problems more visible. Pushing and Stopping and Turning with a lot of things going on will make problems stand out. Like how do you get 3800lbs around the Nurburgring with less power than a lighter car…..build a GT-R. Perhaps a future $40k will out do a 911TT in many more ways. Hyper cars are instruments to solve problems and simplify things.
I can’t even drive my wife’s Civic to its limits (and I autocross that car!) – why should I care about these supercars that I
A) Can’t afford
B) Will never get to drive
C) Can’t drive within 1/10th of their capabilities (and I have the humility to actually admit that).
They’re as boring to me as they’ve ever been- utterly, shamelessly, completely. Like other cost-is-no-object machines designed to do just one thing very, very well, they belong in the realm of specialists and technicians (or poseurs and tycoons, perhaps…).
I like them. It still gives me hope I can make an impractical car that goes fast makes lots of noise and some rich guy (or gal) will pay me a tidy sum to own one.
I never figured out how to get 3 sheets of drywall home in a supercar. Trailer?
I must be the only person here that aspires to own a supercar (in the Gallardo/F430 class, not the Bugatti/Enzo class) someday. Isn’t that what passion for cars is all about? Being passionate enough to hope that you might one day have the chance to blow all of your hard-earned money on something truly unique?
I really fail to see where transporting drywall/carrying around multiple passengers fits into this equation. Last time I checked, it is not too hard to rent a truck or minivan to haul things (or people) on the rare occasion that you might need to. And if hauling hardware and/or people is a daily or weekly occurrence, then it would make sense to have a truck or van in addition to a supercar. Assuming one were to have enough money for a supercar, I’m sure it wouldn’t come down to “If I buy this Murcielago, I won’t be able to justify that Ford Ranger as well”
Expensive and unreliable means that super cars have no relevance to my life.
I lust after vintage supercars. These new übercars -while bloody awesome, just don’t quite do it the same way for me.
the law of diminishing returns
Supercars are essential to prove out, and introduce to the hoi polloi, the “bleeding edge” of engine tech, handling, materials, aerodynamics and dare I say it… style.
So yes, we should love supercars because they lift the quotidian constraints the family sedan has to contend with such as cost, space and yes, comfort. Yet the technology developed for them does find their way to daily drivers, even if after a generation or two. Take disc brakes, turbos and the myriad of suspension designs that trickled down from or were inspired by supercars.
Actually, disk brakes and turbos trickled down from airplanes, as did ABS, but I know what ya mean…
Pssst – Johnny – finalgear.com
you may not like supercars any better but you’ll like TopGear a whole lot more this way.
Speak for yourselves. If I ever won the lottery the first thing I’d buy is a Supercar. Err… 2nd thing, after racing lessons.
I have doubts about them in various ways. But I don’t believe you guys. Not one bit. Just trying to ignore the fact you have no chance of owning one of these I think.
If rich enough, I would own one, though not sure which it would be. I would have to be awfully rich. I do wish I might be that rich one day, and almost surely never will. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t lust after them a bit. Either that or you guys are like an old geezer in his 90’s who doesn’t have the lust for a Playboy centerfold anymore. It might be part of growing up and maturing, but if true you have to admit something has been lost along the way.
esldude is exactly right. Sure, supercars make no sense when you’re making five figures, but if you just announced your company’s IPO and pulled in another hundred million in the course of a few minutes, which are you going to pick: the Koenigsegg (or whatever other supercar you fancy), or the tuned Evo?
esldude & Campisi :
Believe it or not, there are people in this world – very, very rich people – who prefer not to engage in conspicuous consumption. And most people who indulge in a very expensive lifestyle are not rich relative to their spending – witness the countless celebrities who earned huge sums early in their lives only to end up penniless later.
People who want to keep what they’ve earned don’t typically buy things like supercars.
Oh who am I kidding? If I ever hit the right asset level, I’m buying a Murci. And sneaking an RS4 Avant in through Canada.
I’m just tired of the formula. Any jackass with a big enough trust fund can mix and match some ludicrously overpowered V8/V12 supercar, style it to look like a cross between a Tesla Roadster and a Noble, claim they’re going to dethrone the Veyron, and kludge out a few copies. What takes considerably more talent and finesse is a supercar that breaks the mold – an ultra-light diesel like the VW EcoRacer, an electric like the Tesla, a hybrid, a rally car. I’m excited about the Tesla. I’d lust after something in the mold of the old Group B rally cars. I’d love to see a truly raw, flared, winged WRC homologation special. But a big engine stuck in the middle of a swoopy car that looks like a talented 12 year old drew it in his math notebook? Tired and done. The world’s moving on.
The real supercars are not featured in most car magazines. Look at Formula1 for real supercars. There is nothing like hearing the engine hit 20k+ rpms going down the straight and watching the drivers pull 3+ G’s in the corners.
I think part of the definition of a Supercar is that it simply isn’t practical to drive on the road.
Me, I’d go for the more practical; BMW M3 not M1, Porsche 911 not 959…