Saving the Sports Car
Author: Pat Moriarty
blog-culture-sports-car
The sports car used to be an icon of prosperity. Having a fast 2 seater car was the pinnacle of success. The Porsche 911, the Corvette, any Ferrari or Lamborghini. As the trend in automobiles has trended toward bigger bulkier more tank like vehicles, the sports car has slowly faded away. This overall trend has resulted in more dangerous roads and often is referred to as a vehicular arms race. Whoever has the biggest car, owns the road. Long has past where the most respected driver on the road was the fastest. Going fast took skill, but having a big car makes up for a lack of skill. Why drive good when you’re never in danger even if you are endangering others?
Car manufacturers have been more than happy to capitalize on this mentality. Due to lower emission standards for trucks, car manufactures have heavily marketed them over smaller passenger cars. Many car manufacturers cannot meet the emissions standards of passenger vehicles. Not meeting emission standards results in fines and lost profits. To be profitable as a company, manufacturers need to offset their gas powered vehicle sales with carbon credits from sales of electric vehicles. These sales can be internal, or they can be purchased from other manufacturers that specialize in electric cars such as Tesla. Trucks require less carbon credit per sale due to current regulations. Trucks are bigger and will have more emissions, that’s just physics. This was taken into account when the emissions laws were crafted. To prevent a situation where trucks could not be manufactured, they were given lower emissions standards, and over time, car manufacturers have shifted their focus towards trucks to maximize profits.
But how can we reverse this trend and bring back the dominance of the sports car? The majority of people with fast cars has shifted from affluent people to the enthusiast. There is nothing wrong in that of itself, but this leaves us without a future for sports cars. Car manufactures build what they can sell. They need doctors, lawyers, and engineers to want their car. While there is obviously crossover between the affluent and enthusiast, the affluent is the target market. Someone who can afford to purchase a car that doesn’t do it all. A car that excels in 1 category over all else. Most car enthusiasts cannot afford to spend more on a new car that doesn’t accommodate all necessities in life, but someone with wealth can. We need the affluent to buy sports cars again so enthusiasts can in turn buy those sports cars on the used market a few years later at a price they can afford.
Unfortunately, the people who can afford to do not buy sports cars like they used to. They have trended towards fully optioned trucks and SUVs. Many people site safety as the number 1 priority when making the decision to buy an oversized truck or SUV. Having a bigger vehicle makes you less vulnerable. To an extreme, think about a semi truck. Nobody messes with a semi truck on the road. It is so large, it is a force to be reckoned with and creates its own path on the road. Any semi could flatten any passenger car if they wanted to. When people buy a luxury truck or SUV, they are using this same mentality. The bigger I am, the less others will oppose me.
The only factor that may be more important than safety for the general public when buying a vehicle is the perception of the vehicle. The car is a status symbol in society. An expensive car is associated with success while an older beater car is associated with failure. The car manufactures have used this to their advantage as stated before by heavily marketing trucks. The countless ads of a truck driving offroad showing its ability to conquer the elements and over come any obstacle. In reality, that trucks will likely end up in the hands of the doctor, lawyer or engineer that will use it to commute to work.
If the car manufacturers are able to use the public’s perception of a vehicle to sell trucks. Can we also use the public’s perception of trucks and sports cars to shift the paradigm back towards the sports car? Maybe the sports car could be a filter to help its owner avdnace in society instead of being the beacon that shows you made it. In manufacturing, there is a concept call poka yoke. This is used for error proofing to prevent the incorrect item from being used by making sure the incorrect item does not fit. This concept could be applied to the sports car as in the example below.
The sports car can act as a filter from keeping the extra wide hag out of your car. Did you have a couple too many beers at the bar and make a bad choice? The sports car will save you when the double wide lady you unknowingly picked up at the bar after 1 too many pops doesn’t fit in the passenger seat. We can’t say the same for the truck. While this may be a small filter, over time it can snowball into a cultural movement where driving a luxury truck is perceived as you needing the extra space for your X-large woman. This could be the change in perspective we need to bring the sports car back to dominance.