Sports Cars: what constitutes a sports car?
When we think ‘sports car’ it generally conjures up an image of a small two seater, generally but not necessarily with an open top, that drives relatively quickly and that has much better than average manoeuvrability. Of course some sports cars can be blisteringly fast and can corner as if they are on rails, but many others are just for fun and not particularly high performing. They vary in price with some sports cars that can be very affordable. If that is what you are looking for then motors provides many affordable sports cars.

Sports cars have their origins in rallying cars though they were not called as such until after the First World War. Other names for these cars were roadster, speedster, and runabout.

Most sports cars are configures as front engine cars with a rear wheel drive. Ideally the engine should be positioned so that its centre of gravity is behind the front axle as this gives considerably improved stability.

Even better handling is obtained by positioning the engine behind the driver in front of the rear axle (for instance in a Lamborghini) or over the rear axle (for instance in a Porsche). Both these configurations confer excellent handling though the latter also increases traction (and sometimes over-steer).

More recently a number of sports cars have been configured with four wheel drive though this is only seen in very powerful cars such as Lamborghinis and Porsche.

There are some cars that claim to be sports cars that have a forward positioned engine and front wheel drive, but they are mainly sports cars in name only though there are some reasonable small sports cars that have this configuration. Although these cars handle reasonably well their handling characteristics are in fact quite tame and conservative, though conversely they are more difficult to handle in a skid situation.

The term ‘sport’ is often used to represent a higher performance version of a standard production car, but this does not necessarily confer sports style performance on them. Often it is only a marketing term and the performance of car thus being marketed is far from sporty in terms of speed or handling capability.