The Future Of The Affordable Sports Car

"Much Cars" (Trentlikestehcars) 12/31/2013 at 14:50 • Filed to: None

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Being a young jalop I wonder about the future of the affordable sports car. In 20-30 years will I be able to go down to a dealership and pick up a fun to drive, inexpensive sports car? In this article I will try to determine whats in store for people like us who want rear wheel drive and a stick all for a reasonable price. But before I get started I would like to say that this is just my theory, if you think differently feel free to leave a polite comment telling me how terribly wrong I am. Let's get started.

Say goodbye to fun, manual transmission cars from major manufactures. I can already hear the boo's. Don't worry it's not all bad. I believe manufactures will always build sports cars. But in the future these sports cars will be like the GTR. They will be a pile of numbers. Impressive Nürburgring lap times, quarter mile times, and lateral g's thrown in to a handsome body and put on the mass market. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with that but I don't think these are the type of cars we can explore the limits of on a day to day basis or even at an auto cross. If you read Travis's article today !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! you would have read a quote from GM saying "...every product has to have a solid business case." Sadly (and this is backed by the numbers) the business case for the manual transmission sports car is a hard one to make.

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But not all is lost, I think this may even may even be a good thing. Above I said that we will not see fun to drive cars form major manufactures. The key part of that is major manufactures. When companies like GM, Ford and Toyota make a car they have to make compromises in order for the car to sell to a wide range of people. For large manufactures a small run of manual equipped sports cars may not make a large enough profit to be feasible. However, for a smaller company a small run of purpose built sports cars maybe a profitable business model.

So basically what I'm saying is that in the future major auto manufactures will continue to make sports cars for people who want the fastest car on the road, and they will stop making cars for us, the enthusiast. But what I hope for is an enthusiast run small manufacture that will still make fun affordable cars for us.

Thanks for reading and I hope it made sense and please tell me what you think in the comments. :)

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > Much Cars 12/31/2013 at 14:53

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"But in the future these sports cars will be like the GTR."

PLEASE PLEASE NO NO

William Byrd > Much Cars 12/31/2013 at 14:55

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Good writeup. I think the Tesla concept of interchangeable "skateboard" chassis will be the future of enthusiast cars. You will get some sort of all-electric drivetrain with whatever sort of cool body you want, some will have suspensions designed for comfort, some for hooning, some a hybrid of the two. Sadly you are right about manual transmissions, with new electric engines, they won't be needed.

And with all-electric vehicles, there will be LOTS of vintage hyper and super cars from Dubai for sale cheap. :)

Much Cars > William Byrd 12/31/2013 at 15:02

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Thanks, buying a 10 year old Gallardo with the gated shifter sounds like the way to go.

William Byrd > Much Cars 12/31/2013 at 15:03

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Much Italian. Very gated.

Makoyouidiot > William Byrd 12/31/2013 at 15:13

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Such v10

wkiernan > Much Cars 12/31/2013 at 15:14

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I believe manufactures will always build sports cars. But in the future these sports cars will be like the GTR.

No, here's why.

Nissan GT-R MSRP $99,590 number made: 7,000

Mazda MX-5: MSRP $23,720 number made: 800,000

Almost all the people who can afford an MX-5 or a GT-86 can't afford a GT-R, and there are a lot of them; maybe so many as a hundredth of the market for Camrys and F-150s. Why wouldn't at least one or two of the big manufacturers decline to throw away the profits from a reasonably large niche market like that?

Manuél Ferrari > Much Cars 12/31/2013 at 15:21

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Good writing!

I agree that car company's need to have a business case for their cars. Even when there is a halo car that sells at a loss there is a business case for having that halo car in the lineup.

But I do disagree that the small, affordable, RWD and MT sports car will die. I think there will continue to be a limited number of them. But I think there will always be one or two cars like the Miata and BRZ for sale. Here are my reasons:

1. Modular chassis development is making it cheaper to develop lower volume cars. Car companies are reducing R&D costs for their sports cars by using modular development.

2. Small and light sports cars with 4 cylinder engines get good gas mileage. So they don't necessarily need a DCT with 7 or more gears to achieve CAFE targets. A 6MT can produce decent fuel economy in a car like the BRZ. But the heavier luxury sports cars with bigger engines really benefit from having additional overdrive ratios. I fear that cars like the Corvette and 911 will eventually lose their sticks in favor of 8 or 9 speed DCTs. Those cars have a lot of leather and other luxury goodies and bigger engines. Adding gears will help the highway fuel economy numbers. And it probably won't make sense to make stick shift versions of 8 or 9 speed DCTs.

3. It's expensive for car companies to offer a stick shift option alongside a DCT option if the take rate on the stick is really low. But it's not expensive to offer a stick if that's the only option for the manual transmission (there may also be a traditional AT option alongside it). Since cars like BRZ and Miata are affordable it's acceptable for them to not come with a DCT option. So the stick shift take rate is high on these cars.

My guess is that the Miata will continue to be offered with a stick for decades to come. But I fear that 911 will eventually lose the stick. And once the Corvette is offered with a DCT its stick could be in danger of dying too if the DCT take rate is really high.

Much Cars > wkiernan 12/31/2013 at 15:27

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I hope you are right but I think in the future when manufactures can bring super car performance at a low price they will emphasize more on numbers than on driving feel.

Gimmi-Sagan-Om-Draken > Much Cars 12/31/2013 at 15:54

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Porsche needs a new 924/44

Saloon_Hoon > William Byrd 12/31/2013 at 17:51

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the interchangeable chassis was a GM concept named "Hy-Wire", but I can see that happening - though surprised it hasn't happened already. The closest we're at are customizable truck chassis

jsmizira > Gimmi-Sagan-Om-Draken 12/31/2013 at 18:14

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They have a good diesel in that SUV of theirs that they can put in front of a manual transaxle in a brown shooting brake.... Brown diesel manual wagon!!!

Gimmi-Sagan-Om-Draken > jsmizira 01/01/2014 at 02:05

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A fast turbo diesel, I would love to try that.