We need to talk about the modern American sports car

Photo: Ford

I'm seeing a pattern. Remember when I stated that the Lamborghini Centenario is an utter failure? The first time I've put my thoughts about the Centenario together was actually back in March 2016. Just a month later, my collegues from Jalopnik basically stated the same thing. Or when I declared the legitimacy of the Bugatti Veyron? This was also an opinion from March 2016 and, yeah, not quite half a year later the same damn thing happened.

Both articles were written by Máté Petrány, reckon he used to read my stuff back when I first started writing about cars in German? Anyways, so what I meant to say with this little intro is that I kinda seem to know what I'm talking about.

A while ago I stuck my head out and questioned the BMW M2. Much more controversial, though, was the fact that I recommended potential buyers to, instead, look at what the American car market has to offer since they build just as potent if not better sports cars for less money. One can only imagine what kind of shitstorm I'd provoke, if this blog was visited more frequently.

In episode 74 of "Ignition", a Chevrolet Camaro SS was pittet against the BMW M4, which (in the US atleast) was some $35,000 cheaper but, shockingly, just as fast around the track. Together with cars like the new Ford GT and the Chevrolet C7, American sports cars these days form a massive middle finger to "German engineering".

They're just as sophisticated, be it through using high quality interior materials such as aluminium and alcantara or complex tech like high end magnetic ride suspensions. The days of the stone age US muscle cars are long gone and I can openly say that, as someone having grown up in the Land of the Nürburgring and Autobahn, I love the modern American sports car.

Then, in April 2016, it happened. The Ford Mustang outsold every other sports car in Germany, so we learned from sale statistics. That means it has beaten BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Porsche IN THEIR HOME MARKET. How this happened? Oh, I can tell ya. The world has lost its sports car mojo.

It's not necessarily the fault of the manufacturers, it's more of a peer pressure thing. See, similar to how BMW manages to sell the M2 as a light car, the people think that for instance an Audi RS6 is a good compromise for people who want a sports car but need a wagon. It's like finding a compromise between eating and breathing and makes good sports cars go out of style.

So instead of buying some Nissan Primera and a Ferrari 360 Modena for each urge and need, people pump their money into that stupid land yacht of an RS6 than can neither race nor carry right, which at some point broke the record of the biggest brake discs used on a production car. Obviously it did, since as soon as you kick it a little, smoke comes out of the ceramic brakes. Not even high end motor sports parts can stop that kind of weight without a struggle.

However, these Über-wagons aren't even that big of a market. The fastest growing market, popular with snobs and therefore with manufacturers, are pig-ugly SUVs, or sports utility vehicles. Cars like the BMW X6 that are too big and heavy to be good on the road but too low and unequipped to work off-road. Additionally, these brick-mobiles are twice as expensive as wagon variants able to carry just as much.

SUVs are the worst trend since fast frontscrapers and the fact that the market throws itself on the two car types is a heavy hit for sports cars. These days we have Land Rovers with Jaguar engines and sport suspensions that can round the Nordschleife faster than some Ferrari and Porsche. We also have Land Rovers designed by Victoria Beckham to carry women to the shopping mall. Land Rovers. It's a tragedy.

Sports cars have always been a niché product but the growth of SUVs and angery frontscrapers are a real threat. Combined with emission laws getting stricter and a drop of popularity for manual gear shifts, it makes car manufacturers forget that there still are people who want cars a lá BMW M3 E46 or Porsche Cayman.

You could think that car manufacturers are just following suit with changing demands. That they do what they have to do to stay alive. But maybe that's wrong. Maybe the Germans (and many others for that matter) just missed the mark. They didn't offer a package to the likings of car enthusiasts, so they went ahead and bought used or foreign cars, like the Honda S2000 or the Lotus Elise.

Admitedly, you could argue that that the Cayman not only still is being produced and sold, it also finally recieved the engine it deserves in the GT4 while BMW, atleast in theory, did go back to its driving machine roots with the BMW M2.

But these cars are too damn expensive. If you can get the sheer speed and quality of a BMW M4 in a Mustang or a Camaro, why again should I go for the way less potent M2? Because of reputations? Because reputations were partly at fault for the death of the Dodge Viper, a sports car that definately worked with "European standards". It's a shame.

It seems to me, though, that the US will be the global leader in sports cars - and countries like Japan and Germany desperately need to cut a slice of that.