Difference between muscle cars and sports cars?
In: Engineering
It’s probably more accurate to say a muscle car is a class of sports car, rather than them being two distinct things. There’s different types.
Muscle cars: Intended for drag racing. Almost exclusively American marques. Built to accelerate quickly from a dead stop, in a straight line. Very large high torque engines, heavy, exclusively rear-wheel drive, doesn’t corner well. Eg: Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camero, Dodge Challenger. Pony cars are a subclass of muscle cars with an emphasis on affordable power.
Grand Touring car: Sports car designed for long distance road races. Emphasis on more driver comfort and endurance, corners well. May or may not emphasize power. Often rear or all wheel drive. Eg: BMW M Series, Aston Martin DB9, Porsche 911, Chevrolet Corvette.
Roadster: Small, light, two seat, rear wheel drive. Often convertibles. Kind of like a sub category of the touring car. Eg. Mazda MX-5
Hot Hatch: Small front wheel drive three door hatchback cars with large, powerful engines. Designed to be very quick and nimble. Also popular for rallying. Eg Ford Focus ST, Renault Clio RS, Volkswagen Golf GT.
Sport Compact: Like a hot hatch, but with a compact two or four door sedan body. Eg Subaru Impreza WRX, Honda Civic Si/Type R, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. Also commonly used in rally races.
Super/Hyper Car: Typically these embody the fastest, most powerful, most technologically advanced road legal production cars of their era. High performance with an equally high price. Eg. Bugatti Veyron, Lamborghini Aventador, McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari.
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