"loracks" (loracks)
06/16/2016 at 20:58 • Filed to: None
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"loracks" (loracks)
06/16/2016 at 20:58 • Filed to: None | 6
| 5 |
Confession - I’m all hyped out, fam.
Super/hyper/whatevercars. Please, for the love of Enzo, stop before it’s too late. This proliferation of prefixes is getting silly. Let’s reel it in, folks.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, there are myriad types of vehicles manufactured for many different purposes. Amazing, I know! There are civilian vehicles, commercial-use vehicles (usually modified civilian vehicles), industrial-use vehicles, trucks, vans, race cars, off-road vehicles etc.
Supercars, and/or hypercars are just civilian-use cars that happen to go faster than some poor plebe-ass car you or I could afford. Race cars with wing mirrors and adjustable lumbar support, higher top speeds and active aero, minus the roll cage and so forth. Stylish and powerful cars that you can’t even race at LeMans (c’mon ACO hook us up).
Knock, Knock, It’s the Super
This car is super.
At first, the use of “super” to describe cars was perhaps semi-quantitative. One of the definitions of the word super is “exhibiting the characteristics of its type to an extreme or excessive degree” which is indeed what supercars are designed to be - an extreme or excessive version of the idea that is “car-ness,” a vehicle that attempts to exhibit all the attributes of what the designer considered to be an elevated form of “car” (in the philosophical sense). And to be honest I never gave much thought to its use until I first heard the word hypercar, after which point I was forced to examine the evolution of car descriptors in much the same way I was forced to consider the evolution of Nintendo’s product terminology in my younger years.
Bear with me, if you will, for a slightly tangential, yet wholly appropriate example.
First we had the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom, which gave way to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom, which in turn gave way to the Ultra 64 arcade technology (Ultra Nintendo if you will) which Nintendo later adapted and rebranded as the Nintendo 64 for the console market.
You see, I like to imagine that Nintendo realized what I am attempting to explain in this article. That using more and more hyperbolic prefixes to describe an object is a self-defeating process. What would have come after ultra? Who knows? But, eventually you run out of words/prefixes that mean “better than the last iteration of a thing” and devolve into a nightmare of marketing-speak oneupsmanship. Better to get off that train early, before, with your own wording, you set expectations higher than our earthly vocabulary can describe.
Hyperactivate
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And so—we arrive at the term “hypercar.” A term I could do without. The dictionary does not define the word or prefix “hyper” as describing something that is better than something described as being “super.” It simply does not mean that. Hyper just means full of energy to the point of excess, so by the definition, something that is super is still a better version of whatever it is than something that is hyper, which is just a spastic mess.
I suppose hyper could possibly be an accurate description of the character of these cars, but it does not reference the fact that they are quantifiably better, faster, stronger, even though they are in many cases. And let’s be honest, that’s really what we mean when we call something a hypercar instead of a supercar. We mean that it’s better than the last generation of regular old, run-of-the-mill supercars; it’s hyper, bro. On some light speed shit.
The problem is, if we commit to using more and more hyperbolic prefixes glued onto the word “car,” then where do we go next? Ultracar? Ubercar? Some other potentially hyperbolic, nonsensical denotation?
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There are always exceptions.
The one exception to all this (one I admittedly still don’t love, but grudgingly accept) is the term megacar, since mega, when used as a prefix in the metric system, is a quantifiable increment of measurement, and Koenigsegg’s use of the term megacar to describe the Regera, while certainly being a clever play on words by their marketing department, is also describing the fact that its combined ICE/electric motor output is 1,500 HP, slightly over the 1341 HP needed to equal one megawatt of power. But, even then we don’t call other cars kilocars because they output some certain amount of kilowatts, so there are some pitfalls to that strategy as well. (Though it would be kind of cool if they listed things like the kilowatt/megawatt output on the back of the car. The Regera could be a 1.15MW. Gonna hold out for that 2.0MW, yo.)
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Okay, okay, geez. To conclude, if we must use prefixes, then let’s just stick with supercar. These so-called hypercars are really just the up-jumped next generation of supercar, nothing more. You may argue that the underlying technology in these cars is fundamentally different than what was being described when the term supercar was coined, and I will agree. But I do not agree that this precipitates the need for a change in terminology. Technology is constantly evolving, and just because a car is faster doesn’t mean it’s more super than super.
And if you’re like me, you’d love it if the prefix tomfoolery stopped altogether, and we just called them what they truly are - awesome fucking cars.
PanchoVilleneuve ST
> loracks
06/16/2016 at 21:26 |
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The thing that keeps me from being interested in such cars isn’t the nomenclature, it’s how they are seriously the easiest cars in the world to make. Creating insane, flamboyant, hand-built numbers generators with essentially unlimited price tags is about as difficult as beating Doom with IDDQD and IDKFA enabled.
Oh, wow, your 2 and a half million dollar limited production gonzomobile just set all the numbers records! I’m so proud!
I’m much more impressed by something like, say, a Hyundai Elantra, which is engineered to handle everything an average person can throw at it, day-in, day-out, for a decade or even more, and sold for a totally reasonable price that still turns a profit. That is a genuinely brilliant work of engineering.
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loracks
> PanchoVilleneuve ST
06/16/2016 at 22:09 |
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That’s a great point!
Wheelerguy
> loracks
06/16/2016 at 22:14 |
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I propose that we use a tiering system.
Can’t do it on mobile, though. BRB.
Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever
> loracks
06/17/2016 at 02:00 |
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This all started with the Bugatti Veyron. Now everyone wants to sell a 1000-hp car.
WatMyner
> loracks
06/17/2016 at 11:30 |
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Cant use uber car that’s already a thing. Can I suggest the universe car.