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On a related note in the sports car community its been interesting to watch Acceleration stop being a mark of a performance car. There is even a lot of chatter

On a related note in the sports car community its been interesting to watch Acceleration stop being a mark of a performance car. There is even a lot of chatter around this being the end of the supercar segment since there are family wagons that can now do 2 second 0-60 runs. On top of that the speed is now too much for anyone to reasonably use off a drag strip or circuit. Now there is a huge emphasis on engagement, dynamics, and a bunch of vague "feelsomeness" as sports cars slowly become like horses. The march of time is interesting...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jansan 3y ago
Acceleration was never really the top metric for super cars. It was more performance at high speeds, with high end cars like the Bugatti Chiron Supersport 300+ going up to 489 kmph (that is a lot in case you wonder). Part of the super car segment will go electric, that is for sure, but I do not see the end of the super car. Look at luxury watches. They are booming despite a Casio GShock with Multiband beating the shit out of them in terms of accuracy.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Super car segment is well below Bugatti. Thats a 2.5 million dollar car. Super cars are between 150k usedish and a million. Plus a lot of other vague definitions. Most people say call the 911 the dividing line of a supercar and top of the sports car range. In general this segment is dying off, chasis are being reused for 10+ years in the market, tons and tons of special edition and reissues. most of the new work is being done in the Hypercar segment which is almost just a nonsensical money-fight space. And they were, for the most part, defined by speed in the public eye. If you wanted feelsome-ness you just go a Cayman or a Lotus.
  - jansan 3y ago
    I stand corrected, the Bugatti is a hypercar. It's a bit embarrassing considering that I was in the workshop where they make the Bugatti engines just a few weeks ago. Awesome experience btw, seems to be part of the standard factory tour at Volkswagen Salzgitter currently.
jbm 3y ago
We see this same sentiment in comments on this very website. Comments like "Straight line acceleration doesn't matter", for example. Except, as a driver, I never accelerate in a tight curve. Once I got an EV, aggressive drivers were no longer able to block me from merging into traffic; if anything, I was able to easily get away from them if necessary. I believe what we are seeing is car enthusiasm being pushed further into the long tail. Aesthetics, self-sufficiency through repair, exotics, etc, will always have a place, but speed off-track is over. ("Drive feel" is the new "gold cable connectors".)
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  The majority of the long-tail is just becoming "its really expensive" and "its an investment asset" unfortunately.
enragedcacti 3y ago
> Now there is a huge emphasis on engagement, dynamics, and a bunch of vague "feelsomeness" as sports cars slowly become like horses. I think this is mostly just the experience of people who only started caring about performance cars when EVs started being competitive. Porsche people (and many others) have been ranting about the engagement and driving dynamics for 50 years now. There are decades of arguments on forums about handling, 50/50 weight ratios, understeer and oversteer, shifter feel, track times, etc. in addition to arguing about straight line acceleration. EV people feel like those things are just excuses because previously they only digested mainstream auto news which puts a massive emphasis on straight line acceleration.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  This has been an age old debate -- if you read the comment closely it was saying that supercars were defined by acceleration and handling, but now acceleration is no longer their forte. You could always get a sports car like a P-car if you wanted handling. Don't think everything is just defined by this one issue, it goes way back, but Electric has now killed the first half of a supercar
  - enragedcacti 3y ago
    > if you read the comment closely it was saying that supercars were defined by acceleration and handling > sports car community > as sports cars slowly become like horses can you see how I might have been confused that the comment was about sports cars? > supercars were defined by acceleration and handling, but now acceleration is no longer their forte. I would argue that their forte is (usually) being fast around a track, and that acceleration and handling are just aspects of a complete system, subject to engineering tradeoffs like anything else. When we evaluate through that lens, ICE/hybrid supercars are doing just fine.
adfiognionio 3y ago
This is really quite wrong. Performance car /= sports car. Sports cars are light and nimble by definition. They are usually fast, but this is not a rule. There have always been sedans that are faster in a straight line than most sports cars. There have always been sports cars that are not very fast at all. None of this is new, and claiming otherwise is ahistorical. Even back in the '60s, a sports car enthusiast would have chosen an MGB over a much faster Camaro, because the MGB is a sports car and the Camaro is not. Engagement, dynamics, and "feelsomeness" are not vague at all. Handling is the product of engineering. It is largely objective. Some cars really are easier to control than others. Some really do hold on better in the corners. Cars really do have more or less body roll and more or less oversteer. What "character" is best is a matter of opinion, but the car really does have that "character". The fact that something is hard to measure does not mean it doesn't exist. Sports car fans mean exactly what they say: they value handling over acceleration. If they didn't mean it, they wouldn't buy sports cars.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - adfiognionio 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      Again, read your own statements here and think about who you want to be. Why be such a angry person on a forum where nothing matters...
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  And the Tesla plaid is the fastest nurburgring sedan ever made. Go ahead, say that's not a sports car.
  - decafninja 3y ago
wing-_-nuts 3y ago
Honestly I'd bet that anything at or below a 9s 1/4 mile is physically painful. It's gotta feel like getting thrown into a padded wall.
- shric 3y ago
  The maths doesn't check out. A 9 second quarter mile is an average of well under 1g. It is like lying on a bed except with less gravity than usual. Of course it's not linear, but it's very unlikely to be more than 2g at any time. People can comfortably handle well over that in that direction of acceleration
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
Strangely, acceleration seem to stop mattering when EVs took it over. Suddenly, ICE heads started extolling the sensory virtues of the combustion engine.
josephcsible 3y ago
Indeed. It's a case of "my favorite kind of car isn't the best performing anymore, but I refuse to accept that, so I'm going to change the definition of performance instead."
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Pretty much what is destroying the notion of 'sports car' and 'supercar' Enthusaists don't want to admit a family SUV can now blow them away on the road or the track -- so you have to fallback on things like 'feelsome'. its a huge sore spot in the community

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jansan 3y ago

Acceleration was never really the top metric for super cars. It was more performance at high speeds, with high end cars like the Bugatti Chiron Supersport 300+ going up to 489 kmph (that is a lot in case you wonder). Part of the super car segment will go electric, that is for sure, but I do not see the end of the super car. Look at luxury watches. They are booming despite a Casio GShock with Multiband beating the shit out of them in terms of accuracy.

tsunamifury 3y ago
Super car segment is well below Bugatti. Thats a 2.5 million dollar car. Super cars are between 150k usedish and a million. Plus a lot of other vague definitions. Most people say call the 911 the dividing line of a supercar and top of the sports car range. In general this segment is dying off, chasis are being reused for 10+ years in the market, tons and tons of special edition and reissues. most of the new work is being done in the Hypercar segment which is almost just a nonsensical money-fight space. And they were, for the most part, defined by speed in the public eye. If you wanted feelsome-ness you just go a Cayman or a Lotus.
- jansan 3y ago
  I stand corrected, the Bugatti is a hypercar. It's a bit embarrassing considering that I was in the workshop where they make the Bugatti engines just a few weeks ago. Awesome experience btw, seems to be part of the standard factory tour at Volkswagen Salzgitter currently.

jbm 3y ago

We see this same sentiment in comments on this very website. Comments like "Straight line acceleration doesn't matter", for example. Except, as a driver, I never accelerate in a tight curve. Once I got an EV, aggressive drivers were no longer able to block me from merging into traffic; if anything, I was able to easily get away from them if necessary. I believe what we are seeing is car enthusiasm being pushed further into the long tail. Aesthetics, self-sufficiency through repair, exotics, etc, will always have a place, but speed off-track is over. ("Drive feel" is the new "gold cable connectors".)

tsunamifury 3y ago
The majority of the long-tail is just becoming "its really expensive" and "its an investment asset" unfortunately.

enragedcacti 3y ago

> Now there is a huge emphasis on engagement, dynamics, and a bunch of vague "feelsomeness" as sports cars slowly become like horses. I think this is mostly just the experience of people who only started caring about performance cars when EVs started being competitive. Porsche people (and many others) have been ranting about the engagement and driving dynamics for 50 years now. There are decades of arguments on forums about handling, 50/50 weight ratios, understeer and oversteer, shifter feel, track times, etc. in addition to arguing about straight line acceleration. EV people feel like those things are just excuses because previously they only digested mainstream auto news which puts a massive emphasis on straight line acceleration.

tsunamifury 3y ago
This has been an age old debate -- if you read the comment closely it was saying that supercars were defined by acceleration and handling, but now acceleration is no longer their forte. You could always get a sports car like a P-car if you wanted handling. Don't think everything is just defined by this one issue, it goes way back, but Electric has now killed the first half of a supercar
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  > if you read the comment closely it was saying that supercars were defined by acceleration and handling > sports car community > as sports cars slowly become like horses can you see how I might have been confused that the comment was about sports cars? > supercars were defined by acceleration and handling, but now acceleration is no longer their forte. I would argue that their forte is (usually) being fast around a track, and that acceleration and handling are just aspects of a complete system, subject to engineering tradeoffs like anything else. When we evaluate through that lens, ICE/hybrid supercars are doing just fine.

adfiognionio 3y ago

This is really quite wrong. Performance car /= sports car. Sports cars are light and nimble by definition. They are usually fast, but this is not a rule. There have always been sedans that are faster in a straight line than most sports cars. There have always been sports cars that are not very fast at all. None of this is new, and claiming otherwise is ahistorical. Even back in the '60s, a sports car enthusiast would have chosen an MGB over a much faster Camaro, because the MGB is a sports car and the Camaro is not. Engagement, dynamics, and "feelsomeness" are not vague at all. Handling is the product of engineering. It is largely objective. Some cars really are easier to control than others. Some really do hold on better in the corners. Cars really do have more or less body roll and more or less oversteer. What "character" is best is a matter of opinion, but the car really does have that "character". The fact that something is hard to measure does not mean it doesn't exist. Sports car fans mean exactly what they say: they value handling over acceleration. If they didn't mean it, they wouldn't buy sports cars.

tsunamifury 3y ago
[flagged]
- adfiognionio 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    Again, read your own statements here and think about who you want to be. Why be such a angry person on a forum where nothing matters...
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
And the Tesla plaid is the fastest nurburgring sedan ever made. Go ahead, say that's not a sports car.
- decafninja 3y ago

wing-_-nuts 3y ago

Honestly I'd bet that anything at or below a 9s 1/4 mile is physically painful. It's gotta feel like getting thrown into a padded wall.

shric 3y ago
The maths doesn't check out. A 9 second quarter mile is an average of well under 1g. It is like lying on a bed except with less gravity than usual. Of course it's not linear, but it's very unlikely to be more than 2g at any time. People can comfortably handle well over that in that direction of acceleration

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

Strangely, acceleration seem to stop mattering when EVs took it over. Suddenly, ICE heads started extolling the sensory virtues of the combustion engine.

josephcsible 3y ago

Indeed. It's a case of "my favorite kind of car isn't the best performing anymore, but I refuse to accept that, so I'm going to change the definition of performance instead."

tsunamifury 3y ago
Pretty much what is destroying the notion of 'sports car' and 'supercar' Enthusaists don't want to admit a family SUV can now blow them away on the road or the track -- so you have to fallback on things like 'feelsome'. its a huge sore spot in the community