What exactly is a sports car?
11/22/2016
There are terms that seem clear. Nevertheless, they cannot be clearly defined. One of these is probably the term "sports car". In this context, the British speak of "sports car", a term that (according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) has been in use since 1928.
If this is the case, then the continental Europeans were well ahead of the British in this respect, as Laurin & Klement, for example, referred to their 10HP and 14/16HP models as sports cars as early as 1908.
According to the German Wikipedia, a sports car is "usually a two-seater passenger car with a relatively low overall height (or two-seater with two additional emergency seats), the design of which generally focuses on higher performance than a four-seater car and good handling".
Wikipedia mentions two cars that could be described as the earliest sports cars today: Vauxhall 20 HP "Prince Henry" (from 1908, first as a three-liter, later also as a 25HP 4-liter model) and Austro-Daimler 27/80 HP "Prinz-Heinrich-Wagen" from 1910. Incidentally, both had their additional designation because of their focus on the same motorsport event, the "Prinz Heinrich Fahrt".
According to the above definition, a VW Golf GTI Mk1 would probably have been a sports car, but it lacks the frequently required "low height". A Lagonda Rapide (from Aston Martin), on the other hand, could not be a sports car because it had four doors, although it was actually an extended Aston Martin DB4.
With the Porsche 911 (picture above) the case is clear, it was always a sports car. You could take part in a racing event with it without any major modifications. Whether this was also the case with a 928 is more of a question. So not a sports car?
In any case, the history of the automobile is full of vehicles that did not adhere to the terminology, e.g. because the sports regulations or the buyers demanded otherwise.
We have just published a report on the Vauxhall "Prince Henry", the British version of the first sports car. And in doing so, we also came across the question of definition discussed here.
