Excelsior

Issue date: 11/23/09 Section: Columns

So now that we all know what aren't considered sports cars, what is a sports car? A sports car is a small two-door (the word small is relative here) speedy car with excellent handling and braking characteristics. The particulars of this definition can be debated, but that's the basic gist of it. Because about 90 percent of the cars on the road today don't exhibit these characteristics, they aren't considered sports cars. Some examples of real sports cars are the Chevrolet Corvette, the Porsche 911 series, almost any Ferrari or Lamborghini, the Dodge Viper or the Honda NSX, to name a few. They all are high-power two-doors that are fast and handle well. You don't need a lot of power to be considered a sports car, either, like in the case of the Lotus Elise. The Elise uses the same engine found in the Toyota Corolla. It doesn't make that much power, but because the car is so small and light, it still can go very fast.

Just like the girl in the first paragraph misusing her words, I think everyone's confusing "sports car" with a "sporty car." The difference between the two is, sure, the latter probably looks or performs better than a lot of the other cars on the road. It might be a little faster, handle a little better or look a bit more aggressive, but at the end of the day, it's just a prettied-=up version of a less sporty car. A true sports car is in a class of its own. It dominates most of the other cars on the road in terms of performance. The only competition for sports cars are other sports cars.

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