More power or more gauges? How the sports car market has become divided
Technology has "slowly hacked away at the soul of the sports car."
A sports car with a naturally aspirated V12 engine and a manual transmission? It's every enthusiast's dream.
Buying one, however, requires deep pockets. The S1, Gordon Murray's latest supercar creation, reportedly costs at least seven figures. All 64 units were sold even before collectors, industry insiders and admirers of Murray got a sneak peek at the S1 in August.
Murray himself has described the 681-horsepower car as "more elegant, more refined" but also "analog and deeply driver focused," a seeming affirmation that manual gearboxes, gauges and ear-piercing revs (12,100 rpm!) can still exist in a world of increasing technology and electrification.
"A lot of customers are not too excited about hybrid supercars," Matt Farah, host of "The Smoking Tire" podcast, told ABC News. "Regulations are making the new cars worse. People want an analog experience."
The safety tech found in daily commuters -- lane keep assist, emergency automatic braking, blind spot monitoring -- has hindered the driving experience in sports cars, he argued. And hybrid powertrains -- which boost output, speed and miles per gallon -- can actually become a liability for owners, he said.
"Cars have just gotten insanely fast but that does not make them more fun, it makes them more braggable," he said. "There's no difference between 800 hp and 1,000 hp ... you can only use so much on the street. I drive all this stuff and it's boring."
Enthusiasts are now splurging on older sports cars that have been "reimagined" by high-end restomod companies like Singer and Gunther Werks.
"The elite of the elite get real knobs and gauges and real stick shifts," said Farah. "These small outfits are charging a lot to make old cars go faster."
He added, "Everyone else gets stuck with a computer. The new stuff has become very digital but doesn't have a lot of feel."
Tony Roma, executive chief engineer for the global Corvette and performance cars team, called the latest supercars built by Murray, Czinger and others as "trendsetters," adding that these boutique carmakers purposely keep production small.
"A lot of what they do is for show," Roma told ABC News. "Corvette will never compete with these [supercars]."
He added, "This is a fashion industry. We sell a fashion product and people are buying the greatest and latest shiny thing."
Roma declined to say whether a manual transmission would return in the Corvette, though he acknowledged the appeal of rowing one's own gears and the desire for a more raw driving experience.
"What makes a great sports car? That is the question," he said. "People want a visceral connection to their car. Customers want precise steering, a linear range of handling, they want the car to feel natural, to be a modern interpretation of the sports car in their youth. And they want it to sound great. The weight of the throttle and brake pedal -- do they feel like the same person tuned them? And the car has to be confidence inspiring."
Roma said Corvette's customers also request a comfortable ride, which he said was achievable in all six Vettes currently sold, from the Stingray to the new Grand Sport to even the beastly ZR1X.
"Our niche, our draw, is that we're affordable performance," he said. "Most of our customers are not buying race cars."
The backlash to big screens has helped propel sales of older Corvettes, like the C5 generation with manuals, Roma noted. As for the constant chatter about the unwelcome safety tech, Roma said the objections may be exaggerated.
"The people complaining about the tech ... I am not sure they hate it," he said.
Dan Pund, editor-in-chief of Road & Track, has driven many of the top supercars with hybrid powertrains. He said he's astonished at what these machines can deliver when pushed hard on the track.
"The Ferrari 296 and F80 are amazing ... they're maintaining the sound of the engine, the gear shift, the dual clutch," he told ABC News.
The 296 pairs a twin-turbocharged V6 with a plug-in hybrid system, which makes 819 hp. The F80's twin-turbo V6 gets an assist from three electric motors for a terrifying 1,184 hp.
He also had high praise for McLaren's new W1 supercar and its 916-hp twin-turbo V8, noting in his review that the electric motor is "fed by a tiny 1.4-kWh battery -- might as well be a high-capacity pump flooding the driver’s brain with adrenaline, norepinephrine, and endorphins through a fire hose."
Pund recognized that hybrid powertrains can add weight, a nightmare for purists. Automakers, however, have realized that "this is the reality of the situation ... hybrid is the best option at this point. To be competitive in the industry, there has to be noise and vibration because that's what sports car buyers want."
And enthusiasts are clearly choosing hybrids over fully electric sports cars, he said.
"The Rimac [Nevera] was a darling of the industry but it did not sell. It feels like any electric car. You dip into the throttle and holy s--- it's fast. But you don't hear anything and you don't shift gears," he said.
Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, said there will be "no end to how much people spend" on restomods as vintage sports cars with three pedals become sought after by consumers.
"As we layer in more tech and more electrification, sports cars become faster and easier to drive. But this slowly hacks away at the soul of the car," he told ABC News. "These cars are borderline autonomous. There are so many warnings. The vehicle has more control than you do at this point."
Fuel economy has never been a selling point for sports cars, he noted, which make up less than 1% of industry sales. Drury said he, too, has become nostalgic for older models like the Honda Prelude, which was his first car.
"Honda brought back the Prelude nameplate as a throwback," he said. "Prelude looks the part but doesn't back it up with speed and innovation. It would not surprise me at all if Honda pulls the plug on the Prelude after two to three years."
A Honda spokesperson told ABC News that the company is meeting sales targets of the sports car.
"We announced during the launch of the Prelude that we expected annual sales volume of approximately 4,000 units," the spokesperson said. "We also noted that Prelude wasn’t meant to be a volume model, but instead a halo for our hybrid lineup, as it attracts faithful Honda fans while also bringing new buyers to the Honda brand. In fact, more than a third of Prelude buyers have come from another brand."
Farah said he was impressed with the Nissan Z Nismo, a manual sports car that costs a fraction of the price of supercars he regularly test drives.
"It's under $70,000 and very engaging. That car has a lot of poise, great brakes and is very good dynamically -- there's not a lot of computer intervention," he said.
But the Nissan is an exception, he admitted.
"It's very telling that people would rather spend $3 million to $4 million on a [restomod] supercar than $700,000 on a new one," he said.
Related Topics
Popular Reads
ABC News Live