Are real sports cars dying out?
07/14/2022
Ferry Porsche is said to have said: "The last car that will be built will be a sports car". However, it doesn't look like that at the moment. If you look at new registrations in Germany, just 2287 sports cars (around one percent of all new registrations) were put on the road in June 2021. Things don't look much better over the first half of 2022, with 13,635 sports cars or 1.1 percent. And the definition of "sports car" is still relatively broad: a BMW Z4, an Audi TT, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupé or a Ford Mustang are also counted, not just the Porsche 911 (with the largest market share among sports cars), Alpine A110, Audi R8 or Ferrari Roma.
Porsche has long been building far more SUVs and four-door models than genuine sports cars, Maserati and Aston Martin have similar plans, and Ferrari's SUV has long been expected.
While sportiness and genuine sports cars are extremely popular among classic cars, when it comes to new cars, people apparently prefer to buy high-legged 4x4 vehicles. Of course, this is for everyone to decide, but it will have an impact in the future. Sports cars that are not sold new also have no future as neo-classics, youngtimers and classic cars. The remaining examples will be correspondingly rarer and more sought-after, should future buyers of old cars feel drawn to sports cars again.
So perhaps sports cars will not die out after all, even if they become increasingly rare. Do you agree? We look forward to readers' comments on this topic!
P.S. Porsche built more (electric) Taycans than 911s in the first quarter of 2022. Whether you want to consider the Taycan a sports car is up to you ...
_RM.jpg)
