In my Webster Dictionary
Sports car - A low comparatively small usually 2-passenger automobile
designed for quick response, easy manueverability, and high speed driving.
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>From: mgs-owner
>To: mgs
>Subject: Re: Definition of "Sports Car"
>Date: Wednesday, March 06, 1996 8:12AM
>
>>Hey guys, help me settle an on going argument with my friends at work.
What
>>exactly is a sports car?
>
>Ahhh, profitless wordplay... I love it. Who needs debates on Midget
>clutches when you can BS about topics like this? I am one of those for
whom
>the internet has revived the pleasures of prose, so let my fingers play
on...
>
>It has always been my opinion that a "sports car" is defined by the
>following parameters...
>
>(1) a reletively small two passenger car whose...
>(2) performance and pleasure in driving derives *significantly* more from
>handling than from horse power, and...
>(3) whose overriding design purpose is to communicate to the driver and
>passenger the *elemental* pleasures of motoring, at the expense of comfort,
>practicality, and, occasionally, economy.
>
>Ruffians may debate the need for windows, floors, tops, heaters, wire
>wheels, drum brakes, side draft carbs, free-flow exhausts, etc., but I
would
>suggest that such notions are merely seasonings to add to the "meat" of the
>term, as I outline it above.
>
>I would suggest that, speaking here only of cars imported to the US, that
>the Miata, the Del Sol, and perhaps the new BMW (Z3?) are the *only* new
>sports cars on the market. Others may noiminate some I've overlooked.
Note
>I made *NO* stipulation as to the drive wheels. The Del Sol is not getting
>much attention in this category--I'm curious why. I suspect its a fun car,
>and would conform to my subjective sense of what a sports car is. It *IS*
>FWD, which may put off certain purists. Anyone driven one?
>
>There has been, over the decades, an escalation in comfort, handling *and*
>horsepower, such that we see in adverts that the corvette is "America's
>sports car." I don't think so! By virtue of rule (2) above, new
Corvettes,
>Vipers, Camaros, Talons, RX-7s, Porsches, are "high performance cars" (the
>American market is swamped with cars in this category) and Cadillac
Allantes
>and Jag XJS's are "luxo-cruisers." WHO NEEDS THEM???
>
>Likewise, by virtue of rule (3) above, a Ford Aspire is *NOT* a sports car.
>It is an econobox. *REAL* coffins are cheeper.
>
>Will "wears it on his sleeve, too" Zehring
>
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