Sports cars are widely loved, but a quick survey of one’s morning commute will show they are not the most popular vehicle type on the road. Four door sedans, SUV’s, practical pickup trucks, and small economy cars dominate the automotive landscape. Sports cars seem to be an increasingly rare commodity. This is because other types of automobiles are increasingly able to take the best aspects of the sports car experience while avoiding some pitfalls inherent to the smaller speedsters.
For a long time, high performance was ruled by sports cars. Manufacturers used their sports car line to showcase new developments and design elements. Today, however, it appears many of these great qualities can be easily adapted to other car types.

The lighter construction of today’s cars, coupled with improvements in technology, has allowed family sedans to perform almost on par with sports cars. In fact, many of today’s “standard” offerings outperform the higher end sports cars of only a few years ago. Even SUV and trucks boast technology and performance that were unthinkable only a short while ago.

The automobile has evolved to a point where virtually any type of car can capture sports car technology. Regular production cars handle better than ever before and the only performance advantages to sports cars can only be realized under extreme driving conditions few will ever encounter. A sports car may hug a lynchpin turn at high speeds, for instance, better than the family sedan, but one must wonder how often any family will be trying to set speed records on mountain roads.

While today’s regular production models can steal some of the sports cars’ thunder, they can also offer some unique advantages over their smaller counterparts. Sports cars are notorious for their small size. Although this helps in handling and speed, it makes longer drives less comfortable while making every day use less practical. Larger cars have a utilitarian advantage that sports cars simply cannot match.

It was once sensible to trade some comfort for superior performance, but with modern standard autos now performing so well, the tradeoff seems less and less sensible. This seems apparent when one looks at the kind of cars people are buying: larger vehicles with greater seating capacity.

Additionally, the limited utility of sports cars makes them increasingly rare due to economic considerations. Few families today can afford to purchase and maintain a hobby car. By and large, people expect to use the vehicles they purchase on an every day basis. The old days of having a little convertible in the garage to use for occasional bursts of summer fun no longer seems like an economically feasible diversion for most people.

Originally, sports cars were designed specifically with rallies and contests in mind. Auto producers tested their design and mechanical skills against one another as they sought out ways to increase automobile performance. Later, sports cars became popular for mainstream drivers who were seeking greater performance from their vehicles. Lately, however, regular production cars have evolved and now come with the higher performance parts and construction once reserved for sports cars.

This may spell the eventual end for traditional sports cars, although producers are sure to maintain a small fleet of developmental performance cars with which to test new ideas. In the end, we may see a return to the sports cars of yesterday–cars designed specifically and almost exclusively to test new ideas, as opposed to popular cars for the larger public.

With each passing year, it seems, one notices fewer and fewer true sports cars on the road. This trend is not likely to be reversed any time soon, as more practical alternatives exist and the performance gap is shortened. Although the true sports car will probably never completely disappear, it is likely to become increasingly less visible to the public.

Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida with his 16 year old son. Get car care products to care for your car at http://www.stopwaxing.com

Claiming any one new sports car is the most affordable is a great way to start an endless debate. Even if the list price of a particular sports car is less than its competitors, a forthcoming model is likely to sneak in at a few dollars less. Meanwhile, limiting discussion to current models overlooks the truly most affordable sports cars–used models.
Used sports cars can be bargains, particularly older models from less glamorous manufacturers. Fiat sports cars from the 1970s, for instance, can often be found in running condition for under a few thousand dollars. Any sports club car membership will undoubtedly boast scores of stories detailing great bargains found from individual owners on classic sports cars that are more coveted by collectors, too.

If you are looking for a truly affordable sports car and are not intimidated by the prospect of the necessary maintenance issues inherent in older models, you should certainly seek out a used sports car.

There are a variety of ways to find affordable sports cars. The traditional method of looking through your local classified newspaper advertisements on a regular basis can still yield amazing values. Sellers are motivated to part with their sports cars for a variety of reasons and sometimes their needs can be immediate. This will encourage them to sell the car at prices sometimes well beneath market value. Bargain hunting via classified advertisements is a great way to stumble upon a real bargain sports car.

Mechanics can be a great source of bargain cars, too. Often, customers will leave a sports car for work at an auto shop. Once repairs are completed, they will be unable to afford the repair bill and may be forced to default the car to the shop. Mechanics acquire liens on the vehicles and are able to offer them for sale. Mechanics are experts in repairing vehicles and are primarily interested in maintaining cars–not in selling them. A mechanic holding an abandoned vehicle still lacks payment for the work performed, too. As such, these cars can often be purchased at bargain rates. As an additional benefit, buying from a mechanic may indicate the car has had any known problems already repaired. At the very least, you will have a great source of information about the car’s mechanical status–a benefit frequently missing from other bargain sources.

Internet auctions also provide an outlet for sports car bargain-hunters. The auction market is always tricky–sometimes a car may actually sell for far more than one would think it was actually worth. In other cases, there may be a window of opportunity to snag a used sports car at an amazing price. Poorly timed auctions or auctions that do not feature a highly sought after made or model of car can result in very low prices.

Of course the bargain shopper needs to enter the market well informed. Many seemingly great deals can really be busts for a buyer if they are not sufficiently educated. However, affordable sports cars are out there on the market–one need only find them.

Classified advertisements, repair shops and internet auctions are all great opportunities to find a sports car at a bargain price. One need not resign themselves to the prospect of paying top dollar for a sports car. By choosing less popular models, or simply by hunting out great deals, a prospective buyer can save literally thousands of dollars on their sports car purchase.

Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida with his 16 year old son. For quality car care products go to http://www.5starshine.com

Ask anyone what a sports car is and they will probably invent an answer. Ask a dozen different people the same question and they will probably provide a dozen different answers. There are a variety of ways to define what constitutes an actual sports car. With no standardized definition available within the industry, the term “sports car” is without certain meaning.
Originally, it was easy to differentiate between a sports car and a regular production automobile. If a regular person could buy it, it wasn’t a sports car. Sports cars were toys for the extremely rich and automobile-obsessed. They are also used primarily in situations that represented a radical departure from conventional driving. Road races, rallies and other competitions were the home of the sports car as manufacturers and designers went head to head, testing their newest technological advances and inventive ideas.

These sports cars were almost always designed for a single driver and no additional passengers. Occasionally a “co-pilots” seat might have been added. The notion of a backseat made little sense considering the purposes for which the cars were being used. They tended to be extremely small and exceptionally faster than most regularly produced cars.

This historical moment gave birth to a notion of the sports car that survives today among many automotive enthusiasts. These traditionalists will consider a car a sports car only if it is a two-seater and designed for racing.

This perspective was antiquated somewhat by the post-war experience in the United States and elsewhere. Cars based upon the test car technologies began to make their way into the garages of the public. With a more mainstream audience, some changes were made to the traditional sports car, including the frequent addition of a small back seat.

As time passed, sports cars slowly grew and the technologies pioneered by sports cars found their way into vehicles, which were not undersized or built for racing.

In the 1960s, John Delorean decided to drop a large V8 into a Pontiac Tempest. His new invention, the GTO, ushered in the muscle car era. Purists might argue the American muscle cars were not sports cars, but simply cars making use of sports car refinements. The distinction however, began to become lost in regular conversation and “sports car” began to refer to any fast or high-performance vehicle.

The line becomes increasingly blurred with every year. Traditional sports cars are becoming increasingly rare as automakers recognize a need to maintain some level of functionality if they are to entice buyers. The innovations spurred by traditional sports cars are being adopted into vehicles of every size and shape. While traditional racing style sports cars are maintained in many product lines and though some boutique manufacturers still focus their efforts on small high-speed cars, it is impossible to ignore the “crossover” appeal of many traditional sports car features.

Some may say there are sports cars, sporty cars and sporting cars and that they are all different things. To the average person, however, they blend into one.

Which cars are sports cars? Today, it’s hard to tell. You can be a hardliner and say only the racing-based two-seaters qualify, or you can be liberal in your interpretation and proclaim all high-performance vehicles sports cars. Either way, you’d probably be right.

Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida with his 16 year old son. Get quality car care products from http://www.5starshine.com