[wjk_glynn]

VW just showed their "BlueSport" at Detroit: http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/News/Search-R...ow-2009-110109/









The article says they think its a real production candidate.



Karl.

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[jbaarman]

[quote name='flash' post='61240' date='Oct 6 2008, 07:33 PM']lol - i HAD british cars - loved them - about to start a restoration on a TR-4 for that very reason



sports car has been blurred over the years by marketing guys to encompass anything they though t was "sporty" - it really is a niche term, that should not be confused with sports exotic, sport sedan, GT, sport coupe, and exotic - while cars share a lot of the traits and features of a sportscar, there are some basic things required to be a sportscar that make it stand aside from the "buick"



to be a sports car it must:



be a 2 seater - no back seats, no jump seats, nada

be convertible - other wise it's a coupe, hatchback, station wagon, GT, etc

front engine

rear drive

generally a 4 cyl - there are certain exceptions to this (cobra, tiger, some 6 cylinders)

no intrinsic value whatsoever beyond pure sport - useless for going to the grocery store

lightweight (generally under 2500 lbs)



today's ferraris are exotics or sports exotics



911s are GT cars (certain models reaching up into sports exotic)

968s are GT cars, whether in cab or hatchback form



there have been a number of japanese sports cars - a few are the datsun 1600 and 2000, toyota 2000 roadster, yes, the miata qualifies, the S2000 too but it's a bit heavy



i would love another sportscar, but right now i'm pretty happy with the GT[/quote]

I'm glad to see in this brillant thread there was a fleeting mention of the Sunbeam Tiger. I owned one in my youth. It deserves the exception to the 4 cyl rule. What a sports car! Maybe too raw with that V8. And the pedigree: Winston Churchill had a British father and American mother. I remember a day when I "played" with a Corvette on that stretch of I-5 through Camp Pendleton and the guy actually followed me off the exit ramp just to find out what the heck happened. That car was a true sleeper.

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[Anchorman]

In 1968, I was in a two-month training course in St. Louis so I drove out there in my '62 Corvette. One of the other students had a red Sunbeam Tiger. We had a lot of fun together. One idiosyncrasy I remember of the Tiger was that to change the rear spark plugs, you had to go from the passenger compartment through access panels in the firewall. That's why those plugs were almost never changed.

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