Cars - Sports car

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	Cars - Sports car

A sports car is a type of automobile designed for sporting performance.

While opinions differ as to the exact definition, most sports cars have two seats and two doors, and are designed to provide excellent acceleration, top speed, and good looks.

When it comes to actual Sports car racing and the needs for braking, maneuverability, low weight, reliability etc., the philosophies differ. While some brands like Porsche always have built cars that are raced, others like Lamborghini never were intended nor suitable for competitions. Most current so-called sports cars have to be considered luxury cars, with many options and high weight, as few customers are willing to sacrifice comfort or noise deafening.

Great emphasis is often placed on handling—the ability of the driver to remain in control of the car under challenging conditions such as when the car's tires begin to lose their grip on corners.

A car may be sporting without being a sports car. Performance modifications of regular cars, such as muscle cars, hot hatches and the like do not generally fall in the pure sports car territory.

A large, powerful engine is not required; many of the early British sports cars lacked a powerful engine and did not accelerate as quickly as, say, muscle cars, but were known for having exceptional handling characteristics due to their combination of light weight, carefully engineered/balanced chassis and innovative suspension designs. Lotus is often cited as an example of this approach. On tight, twisting roads, such a car has higher effective performance than a heavier, more powerful car with less cornering ability.

In many situations, the term "sports car" is used to refer to any car with more power or performance than is typical for cars in general. Often vehicles in the muscle car, performance sedan/saloon or grand tourer (GT) category are referred to as sports cars even though they tend to lack the light weight and excellent handling characteristics of a true sports car.

Due to bureaucratic restrictions in the North American market, many sports cars are not available for sale or use in the United States and Canada. In Britain and Europe, a more flexible attitude towards small-volume specialist manufacturers has allowed companies like TVR, Noble, Pagani, etc. to succeed.

Prices on sports car have risen due to emissions requirements, more luxerious interior, more powerful engines and so on. Apart from some small British firms the idea of an affordable sports car vanished until the introduction of the Mazda Miata. The Miata had a rather modest price tag and a not that powerful engine 120 bhp. Since the success of the Miata others have followed.

Layout

The layout of drive train and engine influences the handling characteristics of a car and is the focus of more attention in a sports car.

Most modern cars use front wheel drive (FF) where the engine is in the front and drives the front wheels. Some sports cars have this layout (e.g. Lotus Elan M100, Fiat Coupé, Fiat Barchetta, Saab Sonett...), but due to its conservative effect on handling, it is not typical in higher-performance models. However the FF layout is quite common in small Japanese sport cars such as Honda CR-X, Subaru Alcyone SVX, Toyota Celica, Mitsubishi Eclipse... The FF layout has some advantages in small sport cars since it allows you to reduce weight (no need for gearing and propshaft) and size (no intrusion from the transmission tunnel).

Previously FR, front engine driving rear wheels, was common. The designation is deceptive as the engine is often mounted behind the front wheels, so it should be called a mid engine. This form has survived longer in sports cars than in the mainstream and is declared by some to be the "classic" layout for sports cars. The lighter rear-end and rear drive increases the ability of a car to "drift" around corners without losing control.

In search of improved handling and weight distribution other formats have been tried. mid engine, rear drive (MR) is a layout commonly found only in sports cars—the engine is mounted towards the centre of the chassis, close behind the driver, and powers the rear wheels.

Porsche are the sole remaining users of the RR layout, a rear engine driving the rear wheels. The qualities of their cars are often said to have come about despite rather than because of this layout. The weight distribution across the wheels in a Porsche 911 provides excellent traction, but cannot be seen as ideal as the weight of the engine is outside the car's wheelbase. This would usually lead to extremely unpredictable handling and, indeed, many of their early Porsches did suffer from this. However, Porsche have continuously refined the design and, in the recent years, combined their modifications with electronic driving aids like computerized traction and stability control which do much to counteract the inherent flaws of the design. Many of Porsche's techniques have been applied to other cars with success.

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Cars - Sports car

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