Are there any American super cars?

[Mr. Coffee]

The interior of the Corvette is in no way noteworthy. It is like comparing a cruise ship to an ocean liner. As to Ferrari not being able to keep up with Corvette, that is in no way true. The differences in lap time are not that far apart (Porsche beats everything though and I would not simply call them supercars either).

Never said the Corvette's interior was anything special or that there was a huge difference in lap times. What I do find impressive is that the Corvette delivers the same level of performance as a $1,000,000+ Italian supercar at a tenth the price. Think of all the time spent by Ferrari on designing the Enzo, all the expense that went into it's design and looks, only to have it get passed by an American car that was literally built because GM engineers took an off the cuff remark from GM's CEO seriously.

Rarity is a huge part of being a superstar. A corvette is not rare.

It's also the reason why I can have a ZR1 for 1/10th the cost of an Enzo.

Likewise, if we are talking about subjective opinion, the Corvette is just ugly. It's form does not flow, it does not have soft curves but is also not as aggressive looking as some cars that don't go for soft curves but still look amazing. Like the Koenigsegg, Lamborghinis or the Pagani Zondas.

And yet despite that the Corvette can post a faster lap time than anything those manufacturers make that's street legal. You're impressed by looks, balance, ect. I can understand that and it's perfectly valid for you to think that, after all, this really does boil down to personal opinion. I think performance is the one defining characteristic and I also believe in getting as much bang for my buck as possible. For the money you'd spend on any of those cars you've named I can get a Vette and spend the balance on paying for gas and insurance for a decade and still have money to spare for weekends at my favorite titty bar.



Also, Scrib, you're adding nothing at all, and your sad ass attempts at starting a flame war with me are tiresome and obvious. Now shut the fuck up and unass the thread before you end up getting a good car discussion HOS'd, you useless dickhead.

[Mr. Coffee]

Too many of them produced to be a real supercar.

Thanas, that's a bullshit distinction. Rarity only matters if you're a collector.

[Thanas]

The interior of the Corvette is in no way noteworthy. It is like comparing a cruise ship to an ocean liner. As to Ferrari not being able to keep up with Corvette, that is in no way true. The differences in lap time are not that far apart (Porsche beats everything though and I would not simply call them supercars either).

Never said the Corvette's interior was anything special or that there was a huge difference in lap times. What I do find impressive is that the Corvette delivers the same level of performance as a $1,000,000+ Italian supercar at a tenth the price. Think of all the time spent by Ferrari on designing the Enzo, all the expense that went into it's design and looks, only to have it get passed by an American car that was literally built because GM engineers took an off the cuff remark from GM's CEO seriously.

Which is all well and good if you are into the kind of "HAHA STUPID ITALIANS" superiority, which misses the point spectacularly. It doesn't matter if a standard manufacturer makes a great fast car. Ford could built the fastest car ever. It is still a Ford. A corvette is still a corvette. You are not buying just performance. You are buying the name, the history.

Rarity is a huge part of being a superstar. A corvette is not rare.

It's also the reason why I can have a ZR1 for 1/10th the cost of an Enzo.

Which again, does not matter. The point of a supercar is not to be cheap. It is to be ludicrously expensive.

And yet despite that the Corvette can post a faster lap time than anything those manufacturers make that's street legal.

On one track, which proves nothing. Put them against each other over the course of a full season, preferrably with great drivers. Then see who comes out ahead. Or put them up on a long race, like Les Mans. Which american car manufacturers have not won on since the 1950s.

You're impressed by looks, balance, ect. I can understand that and it's perfectly valid for you to think that, after all, this really does boil down to personal opinion. I think performance is the one defining characteristic and I also believe in getting as much bang for my buck as possible. For the money you'd spend on any of those cars you've named I can get a Vette and spend the balance on paying for gas and insurance for a decade and still have money to spare for weekends at my favorite titty bar.

Sure, but again that is not a supercar thought to me. You don't care about money if it is a supercar, you want it to be expensive and exclusive.

[Mr. Coffee]

Which is all well and good if you are into the kind of "HAHA STUPID ITALIANS" superiority, which misses the point spectacularly. It doesn't matter if a standard manufacturer makes a great fast car. Ford could built the fastest car ever. It is still a Ford. A corvette is still a corvette. You are not buying just performance. You are buying the name, the history.

What I'm loving here is you try to call me on going "HAH STUPID ITALIANS" and you immediately follow with "HAHA LOWBROW AMERICANS". I get it, names impress you more than actual performance.

Which again, does not matter. The point of a supercar is not to be cheap. It is to be ludicrously expensive.

No, the point is being a high performance car, a street legal race car. Everything elese is just window dressing to impress those more concerned with style than they are with substance.

On one track, which proves nothing. Put them against each other over the course of a full season, preferrably with great drivers. Then see who comes out ahead. Or put them up on a long race, like Les Mans. Which american car manufacturers have not won on since the 1950s.

1960s, man. Four back-to-back wins by a Ford GT40 Mk.I from 1966 to 1969. Also, since fucking when is a racecar the same thing as a street legal supercar?

Fuck, bro, I thought you knew your racing....

Sure, but again that is not a supercar thought to me. You don't care about money if it is a supercar, you want it to be expensive and exclusive.

No, I want it to deliver as much performance as possible for the money I pay. You're concerned about looks and rarity and such, but that shit doesn't really matter near as much as performance. If I want a luxuriously appointed interior, heated seats, and 7.1 surround stereo I'll go buy a luxury car. If I want something fast for a weekend on the track I'll buy sports car, and that's all a supercar is, just an more expensive and higher performance kind of sports car.

[aerius]

And yet despite that the Corvette can post a faster lap time than anything those manufacturers make that's street legal.

On one track, which proves nothing. Put them against each other over the course of a full season, preferrably with great drivers. Then see who comes out ahead. Or put them up on a long race, like Les Mans. Which american car manufacturers have not won on since the 1950s.

You do realize that the Corvette has 6 wins in the GT class at Le Mans since 2000. They were winning so often that the organizers stuck them with restrictor plates to slow them down and make the races competitive.

[Thanas]

What I'm loving here is you try to call me on going "HAH STUPID ITALIANS" and you immediately follow with "HAHA LOWBROW AMERICANS". I get it, names impress you more than actual performance.

When it comes to supercars, you need a name, a design that stands out both in performance and looks and a price. The corvette only has one out of four. It is not special via name. It has performance, but lacks everything else that makes it a supercar in my opinion. Also, a car company that primarily makes pickup trucks should be disqualified by default.

No, the point is being a high performance car, a street legal race car. Everything elese is just window dressing to impress those more concerned with style than they are with substance.

Or it impresses those who like class.

No, I want it to deliver as much performance as possible for the money I pay. You're concerned about looks and rarity and such, but that shit doesn't really matter near as much as performance.

Too you. I think most car fans I know would disagree with this.

[Napoleon the Clown]

What I'm loving here is you try to call me on going "HAH STUPID ITALIANS" and you immediately follow with "HAHA LOWBROW AMERICANS". I get it, names impress you more than actual performance.

When it comes to supercars, you need a name, a design that stands out both in performance and looks and a price. The corvette only has one out of four. It is not special via name. It has performance, but lacks everything else that makes it a supercar in my opinion. Also, a car company that primarily makes pickup trucks should be disqualified by default.

The Corvette name may not be much in Europe, but it's considered one of the classics over here in the US. It's an enduring sports car name that everybody has heard of. It doesn't have the glamor of Ferrari, maybe. But it still has a name with history. "Well Chevy makes primarily pick up trucks!" And? Are we into a question of if the manufacturer is prestigious? Or is it about individual cars? As far as the price tag goes, the ZR1 is likely the most expensive car Chevrolet currently produces. Aesthetics, as I mentioned previously, I won't touch on since that's purely subjective. I don't find the Veyron to be impressive, aesthetically.

Fiat owns Ferrari. Fiat isn't exactly known for fast cars. Corvette is just about its own brand, it's so different from the typical car Chevrolet makes. Bugatti is owned by Volkswagen. Does that disqualify the Veyron, since Volkswagen doesn't make primarily performance cars? In fact, most of its cars seem to be of the more economically minded end of things. Lots of diesel powered cars.

[InsaneTD]

If you look at what all the classic super cars had in common, stupidly fast (Normally because if a very lopsided power to weight), a luxury interior (Lots of animal skin and maybe some wood. Never plastic or vinyl) and normally the latest and greatest features as well as a stupidly large price tag. Most of the big supercar names weren't even that famous before they built their first supercar. Personally, I'd a just call a Corvette or GT40 a racecar that had a production run to meet whatever requirement for class they wanted it in for racing. Supercars weren't built because the company wanted a racecar, they were built to sell the car to the rich and famous. They were raced because they were so damn quick and once you took out all the luxury extras, they got even quicker

[aerius]

Too many of them produced to be a real supercar.

Porsche is only making 918 of them. Ever. By that standard nearly every Ferrari or Lamborghini would also be disqualified, and same thing for most other brands.

[Jub]

@Coffee:

I think you're mistaking a track car for a super car in your assessment.

We can all agree that the Corvette is plenty quick on the track and it's more than able to make noise, smoke tires, and slide around corners. For the price you can afford to take it out and thrash it around as often as you'd like on a fairly modest budget. Of course I'd argue that something like a Lotus Elise or a proper track car like an Aerial Atom will still be better for that purpose and are around the same price...

That's a track car, not a super car.

A super car can go fast, but most of the people who drive them won't get them going at those speeds. People want a car they can stand out in while cruising around, a car that will turn heads. Corvettes, Vipers, and Porsches just don't do that. They lack the look that drives people to get posters made, they lack the feel that makes you want to get behind the wheel again and again, they lack the features that a person with money wants.

You can make the claim that you can get better bang for your buck with a cheaper car, and you'd be right to make it, but they guy who can afford to blow $1 million+ can also afford to not care about value at that stage. They want something that they can point to and say, 'That's right, I can afford one of these and when I'm done with it I can afford to let it sit in my garage and look pretty.' They don't care if they get the fastest car ever or the best value for money, they care about getting everything they want - things like brand, styling, performance, price (a high one is better), etc. - and they have the means to get these things.

[Mr. Coffee]

What I'm loving here is you try to call me on going "HAH STUPID ITALIANS" and you immediately follow with "HAHA LOWBROW AMERICANS". I get it, names impress you more than actual performance.

When it comes to supercars, you need a name, a design that stands out both in performance and looks and a price. The corvette only has one out of four. It is not special via name. It has performance, but lacks everything else that makes it a supercar in my opinion. Also, a car company that primarily makes pickup trucks should be disqualified by default.

Dude, you think the Porsche 913 Spyder isn't a supercar, despite having a price tag over $800k, which really makes me wonder if you know what fuck you're on about. It has all the qualities you talk about except this rarity crap you keep yammering about, yet some how that's not a supercar despite it being one of the few Euro cars that can actually beat A Vette or a Viper around a track.

At this point I'm really not sure if you'd know what a supercar was is someone hit you with one.

Or it impresses those who like class.

Oh, you mean prissy snobs who are more concerned about how a product looks than how it performs. Did I ever mention my extreme low opinion of those type?

Too you. I think most car fans I know would disagree with this.

Actually I think you'll find this debate is slightly less divisive a topic than the Glock vs 1911 debate, bro. You like fancy pretty cars, I like cars with abnormal levels of horsepower and how hard you can drive it before it'll leave the road.

[Mr. Coffee]

A super car can go fast, but most of the people who drive them won't get them going at those speeds. People want a car they can stand out in while cruising around, a car that will turn heads. Corvettes, Vipers, and Porsches just don't do that. They lack the look that drives people to get posters made, they lack the feel that makes you want to get behind the wheel again and again, they lack the features that a person with money wants.

The only thing worse than a snobbish prick that buys a high performance car as a fashion statement is the kind of snobbish prick that buys one and has no intention of ever actually using that performance. Owning vehicles like that and not chucking them around a track is just goddamn criminal. Seriously, it should be legal for me to punch people like that in the dick and steal their car.

Also, not sure what planet you're on, but around here a nice Vette or Viper turn plenty of heads.

[Jub]

A super car can go fast, but most of the people who drive them won't get them going at those speeds. People want a car they can stand out in while cruising around, a car that will turn heads. Corvettes, Vipers, and Porsches just don't do that. They lack the look that drives people to get posters made, they lack the feel that makes you want to get behind the wheel again and again, they lack the features that a person with money wants.

The only thing worse than a snobbish prick that buys a high performance car as a fashion statement is the kind of snobbish prick that buys one and has no intention of ever actually using that performance. Owning vehicles like that and not chucking them around a track is just goddamn criminal. Seriously, it should be legal for me to punch people like that in the dick and steal their car.

I don't really disagree with you, but that is what sets a super car apart from a street legal track car.

In fact let me make a definition you can agree with so we can settle this thing.

Track Car:

Fast on the track, street legal, affordable to buy and run, and no frills that get in the way of performance.

Super Car:

Overly styled, extra frills, unneeded power, reduced performance, and an over large cost to buy and run.

One type of car appeals to you, and many other motoring enthusiasts, but doesn't really meet the requirements of the clique that likes really expensive and well styled toys. The other costs a ton, but hits all the right notes for the people who can afford them.

There's no reason to try to force the track car into this category. The guys who like and drive them won't care and getting them into that club will only price them away from you anyway. You're better off letting people think less of them so that way you can still get them easily.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

If you look at what all the classic super cars had in common, stupidly fast (Normally because if a very lopsided power to weight), a luxury interior (Lots of animal skin and maybe some wood. Never plastic or vinyl) and normally the latest and greatest features as well as a stupidly large price tag.

Wrong. THE most iconic supercar, the Ferrari F-40, had practically no interior at all. No radio, no AC, no leather seats, no dash padding, not even any interior door handles, just performance at all costs.


And I take it that I'm the only person here who's heard of Vector Motors?

http://www.vectormotors.com/company.html

[Thanas]

Fiat owns Ferrari. Fiat isn't exactly known for fast cars.

Different company though with its own structure etc. Same with Bugatti.

As to you Coffee, I feel discussing with you is pointless. You are convinced by your own opinion which of course has to be the only right one. Tbh, this kind of discussion is counterproductive and not what this board is for. I won't bother eplaining the difference between a Porsche and a Supercar to you as it is clear you think every car which goes fast a super car and anything extra besides speed to be unnecessary waste. Whatever, your opinion.

[InsaneTD]

I should of said most and I didn't know that about the F-40. Never looked into the thing.

I've never heard of them but sports cars aren't really my thing anymore so I haven't been keeping up with the latest sports cars.

[Lord Relvenous]

Seriously, Thanas, on what fucking planet are you from where Ford GT does not qualify as a supercar? Are fucking high, man? And don't get me started on the fun things Vipers do on racing circuits or how it is that Ferrari doesn't even make anything stock and street-legal that can keep up with a Corvette ZR-1.

Most people consider a supercar to be a blend of performance and lavish interior and exterior design, and the Ford GT, Ziper and ZR-1 all fall short on interior design. That's also why they don't cost a quarter of a million dollars or more. They basically just have normal not even that expensive car interiors making people tend to view them as just streetable race cars, which is exactly what they were intended to be.

That's a hypercar, and there are no American hypercars. However, the Ford GT and Viper certainly qualify as supercars.

[Mr. Coffee]

As to you Coffee, I feel discussing with you is pointless. You are convinced by your own opinion which of course has to be the only right one. Tbh, this kind of discussion is counterproductive and not what this board is for. I won't bother eplaining the difference between a Porsche and a Supercar to you as it is clear you think every car which goes fast a super car and anything extra besides speed to be unnecessary waste. Whatever, your opinion.

Oh get the fuck over yourself, Thanas. Every point you just made applies to your argument as well. This is a divisive topic, guy. It's ALL opinion based.

[TheFeniX]

Lamborghini makes tractors and their interiors, with exceptions, have never been all that fancy, lacking seats stuffed with eagle down and no eagles in the dashboard anywhere. Guess they don't make supercars, just a bunch of rednecks trying to make fancy cars.

[Thanas]

As to you Coffee, I feel discussing with you is pointless. You are convinced by your own opinion which of course has to be the only right one. Tbh, this kind of discussion is counterproductive and not what this board is for. I won't bother eplaining the difference between a Porsche and a Supercar to you as it is clear you think every car which goes fast a super car and anything extra besides speed to be unnecessary waste. Whatever, your opinion.

Oh get the fuck over yourself, Thanas. Every point you just made applies to your argument as well. This is a divisive topic, guy. It's ALL opinion based.

It is, which is why I think continuing to argue it either way is pointless.

[Mr. Coffee]

And miss out on a chance to shoot the shit about cars? Dude, keep talking crazy like that and they'll yank your Male Union Card.

[Thanas]

Actually, let's get away what is or what is not a supercar and talk a bit more about the corvette. Is there anybody else here who absolutely hates designs past C3? I like the rear view of the C4 but the front and the rest of the newer designs are just ugly to me. I miss the old Stingray. That one looked absolutely beautiful.

[Napoleon the Clown]

'68 Stingray. I've seen one that was fully restored and in pristine condition in person and good lord are they pretty. UNF. Also, the fifties run of Corvettes were nice, too.

I'll agree with the idea that they aren't necessarily works of art like they once were, but I don't really have anything against the styling now.

As far as the different companies thing goes, Corvettes are produced at a plant that makes no other Chevrolet vehicles. The only other model of car made there is a Cadillac. Which isn't exactly a truck. I'm not finding anything about the engineering teams used, but the engineering for a sports car is quite different from for other models of cars. I wouldn't be surprised if the team that engineered the modern line of Corvettes has little to nothing to do with trucks. They may as well be their own little sub-company with how differently they operate.

The only thing Bugatti currently has out is a single model of car, the Veyron. Which, last I heard, was sold at a net loss (source and another and "After the release of the car, it has been reported that while each Veyron is being sold for £840,000, the production costs of the car are approximately £5 million per vehicle." source for that) due to extremely high engineering costs and the material costs themselves are expensive as hell. Bugatti wouldn't be able to keep afloat if it were entirely its own thing because it went so far into the red to make the Veyron. Unless they've managed to drive down production costs enormously since 2005 they haven't made a dime of profit off the Veyron. They exist to develop technology for Volkswagen. And hey, if they succeed at that, good on them.

So eight years and they haven't managed to make up for the amount of money they dumped into the project? If they had to keep afloat on their own they'd have another car out by now that could easily turn a profit. Volkswagen is paying for their production costs, so I honestly don't give a shit. But they are far from their own, independent company. They're just as much a Volkswagen as a Corvette is a GM or a Mercury what have you is a Ford. Or a Holden is a GM, for that matter. When two car companies share tech as freely as VW and Bugatti, or Chevrolet and GMC, or Ford and Mercury... If they share parent companies then it's not terribly honest to say they're their own thing. An Acura NSX has always been a rebadged Honda NSX. Bugatti and VW may not share any models, but they freely trade tech. That's why VW bought the Bugatti name in the first place. It was about having a name with an image and a place to test out shit on cars that would actually see release. Nobody would buy a million Euro car from VW. But a name like Bugatti? Sure, why not? It's why Honda releases their luxury and highest performance cars under the Acura brand here in the US. Or Toyota has the Lexus brand over here. Dunno if they use Lexus in Europe or not.


Now, I think we can all agree that the nice as fuck cars from the 1930s (Deusenberg, Mercedes, etc.) are works of art. Maybe not as nice a ride as the stuff we have now, but they were stunningly beautiful. Does everyone also agree that the Shelby Cobra (Carol Shelby getting bored and dropping a huge engine in a light-weight British roadster's body) looks nice as shit? Those bastards are rare and expensive properly restored. Kinda ticked me off when the idiots on Pawn Stars restored one wrong... The guy selling the chassis should have told them to get fucked over the pittance they offered. Take that bitch to a car show and you can get way more than what you got offered at a damn pawn shop.

Last thing I think we can all agree on: The most important part of a car is if it makes the owner happy. If being balls-to-the-wall fast for as cheap as possible makes you happy, then that kind of car is right for you. If you want something that turns head and is fast as hell, Ferrari or Porsche or whoever else that makes showy and fast cars is right for you. If you want something that's inexpensive to own, a little economy car is right for you. When it comes to what car is a good fit for you, there's no wrong answer. Unless it's a huge-ass truck that will never be used as an actual truck. Fuck those things.

[Thanas]

'68 Stingray. I've seen one that was fully restored and in pristine condition in person and good lord are they pretty. UNF. Also, the fifties run of Corvettes were nice, too.

I'll agree with the idea that they aren't necessarily works of art like they once were, but I don't really have anything against the styling now.

It just looks generic and unimaginative right now. Unlike say, the Vipers, who always kept their design element to keep them apart.

Bugatti wouldn't be able to keep afloat if it were entirely its own thing because it went so far into the red to make the Veyron. Unless they've managed to drive down production costs enormously since 2005 they haven't made a dime of profit off the Veyron. They exist to develop technology for Volkswagen. And hey, if they succeed at that, good on them.

So eight years and they haven't managed to make up for the amount of money they dumped into the project? If they had to keep afloat on their own they'd have another car out by now that could easily turn a profit. Volkswagen is paying for their production costs, so I honestly don't give a shit. But they are far from their own, independent company.

They have their own design and engineering teams. That is what matters. Lamborghini is also owned by VW and they still do their own thing even while sharing technologies.

Or Toyota has the Lexus brand over here. Dunno if they use Lexus in Europe or not.

They do. They also bought their design from mercedes, which is why their earlier models looked a lot like the S class.

Now, I think we can all agree that the nice as fuck cars from the 1930s (Deusenberg, Mercedes, etc.) are works of art. Maybe not as nice a ride as the stuff we have now, but they were stunningly beautiful. Does everyone also agree that the Shelby Cobra (Carol Shelby getting bored and dropping a huge engine in a light-weight British roadster's body) looks nice as shit? Those bastards are rare and expensive properly restored. Kinda ticked me off when the idiots on Pawn Stars restored one wrong... The guy selling the chassis should have told them to get fucked over the pittance they offered. Take that bitch to a car show and you can get way more than what you got offered at a damn pawn shop.

Oh yeah, the Shelby. Lovely piece.

[Siege]

Actually, let's get away what is or what is not a supercar and talk a bit more about the corvette. Is there anybody else here who absolutely hates designs past C3?

The 2014 Corvette Stingray may very well be the sexiest thing I've seen since the Lamborghini Aventador. I'm not sure exactly why but there's something about it that says "get out of the way fool" to me in a way no current Mercedes, BMW or Audi does. Things like the Merc SL (or for that matter the AMG models) may very well match it for speed and are probably loaded with more gadgets and generally more refined but there's a real chance that if I had the money for either I'd still have the Stingray because it simply looks more goddamn exciting and fun to drive.

But that's me. I enjoy dumb pointless cars with too much power for their own good. In that sense I suppose I sympathize with Mr. Coffee in that I don't really understand the point of a lot of 'hypercars'. Don't get me wrong, I think the Pagani Huayra for example is a gorgeous machine but there's something about buying an insanely over-engineered million dollar plus vehicle and then only using it to slowly cruise down the avenues of Monaco as a display of bloated opulence that strikes me as deeply perverse.