Sport Car

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This article is about roadgoing sports cars. For the type of motorsport, see Sports car racing.

1963 Jaguar E-Type, a classic sports car

1963 Chevrolet Corvette was based upon European sports cars
A sports car is an automobile designed for performance driving. Most sports cars are rear-wheel drive, have two seats, two doors, and are designed for precise handling, acceleration, and aesthetics. A sports car's dominant considerations can be superior road handling, braking, maneuverability, low weight, and high power, rather than passenger space, comfort, and fuel economy.
Sports cars can be either luxurious[1] or spartan, but driving mechanical performance is the key attraction. Drivers regard brand name and the subsequent racing reputation and history (for example, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus) as important indications of sporting quality, but brands such as Lamborghini, which do not race or build racing cars, are also highly regarded.
A car may be a sporting automobile without being a sports car. Performance modifications of regular, production cars, such as sport compacts, sports sedans, muscle cars, hot hatches and the like, generally are not sports cars, yet share traits common to sports cars. Often, performance cars of all configurations are grouped as Sports and GT cars, or, occasionally, as performance cars.
A sports car does not require a large, powerful engine, though many do have them. Some classic British sports cars lacked powerful engines, but were known for exceptional handling due to light weight, a well-engineered, balanced chassis, and modern suspension. On tight, twisting roads, such an automobile performs more effectively than a heavier, more powerful luxury car with less maneuverability.
Due to North American safety regulations, many sports cars are unavailable for sale or use in the United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle Eastern market (e.g. UAE), a flexible attitude towards small-volume specialist manufacturers has allowed companies such as TVR, Noble, and Pagani to succeed.

The drive train and engine layout determine the handling characteristics of an automobile, and is the point of the design of a sports car.
The front-engine, rear-wheel drive train layout (FR layout) is common to sports cars of any era. This configuration has survived longer in sports cars than in mainstream automobiles. Current examples include the Caterham 7, Mazda MX-5, and the Chevrolet Corvette.
In search of improved handling and weight distribution, other formats have been tried. The RMR layout is commonly found only in sports cars — the motor is centre-mounted in the chassis (closer to and behind the driver), and powers only the rear wheels. High-performance sports car and supercar manufacturers, such as Ferrari and Lamborghini prefer this layout. Many modern cars, especially grand tourers, also use a FMR layout, with the motor sitting between the front axle and the firewall.
Porsche is one of the few, remaining manufacturers using the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout (RR layout). The motor's distributed weight across the wheels, in a Porsche 911, provides excellent traction, but is not ideal, as the engine's weight is not between the two axles; the vehicle is poorly balanced, thus, many early Porsches handled twitchily. Yet, Porsche have continuously refined the design and, in recent years, combined engineering modifications and electronic driving aids (i.e. computerised traction-stability control) to counteract inherent design shortcomings.
Some sport cars have used the front-engine, front-wheel drive layout (FF), e.g. Lotus Elan M100, Fiat Coupé, Fiat Barchetta, Saab Sonett, Toyota Celica and many Berkeley cars. This layout is advantageous for small, light, lower power sports cars, as it avoids the extra weight, increased transmission power loss, and packaging problems of a long driveshaft and longitudinal engine of FR vehicles. Yet, its conservative handling effect, particularly understeer, and the fact that many drivers believe FR is a more appropriate layout for a sports car make this layout atypical to high-performance sports cars. The FF layout, however, is common in sport compacts and hot hatches, such as the Honda Civic Si/Type R and the Volkswagen Golf GTi, which are not necessarily sports cars.
Before the 1980s few sports cars used four-wheel drive, which had traditionally added a lot of weight. Not a sports car, but the Audi Quattro, with coaxial driveshafts, proved its worth in rallying, and with the added advantage of all-weather traction ability. Four-wheel drive is now common in high-powered sports cars, including Porsche, Lamborghini, and the Bugatti Veyron (currently holds the world speed record for 407 km/h (253 mph) supercar.