Very fast cars and supercar - are they dinosaurs?
Following the financial crash, you might think we have seen the last of supercars and very fast cars. Also, with oil reserves running out, what will we use for fuel?
The question is easy to answer: fat cars and supercars, like Lamborghini Gallardos and Jaguar XKRs generally do much lower mileages than ordinary cars, and they can be converrted easily to run on second generation bio-fuels, so fuel will be available.
On the other hand, money is tight! Even for people who usually have plenty of it. So there will not be so many sold for the time being. If we go back to the first real supercar or exotic car we can see what happened when the global economy hit ths kids last time.
That car was the Jaguar XJ220 that led people to look for a new word to describe really fast sports cars. Up to that time, Ferraris and Aston Martin were seen as very fast fast cars or super sports cars.
The Jaguar XJ220 was so outrageously fast that the word supercar came into use, although that type of car is now called an exotic car or exotic supercar, but not a supercar.
The point is, though, that Jaguar had trouble selling XJ220s, but ten years later could have solkd all they wanted! So, the money will come back, and so will more supercars.
Performance has moved on in the past 20 years, so now cars like the Gumpert Apollo, Ferrari California, Lamborghini Murcielago and Ultima GTR are definitely supercars.
Supercars are very fast cars that can be driven fast anywhere
They are not just fast cars, but cars that can be driven fast on twisty roads, whether they have hump backs, poor surfaces, steep inclines or not. But supercars are only suitable for driving on metalled roads – don’t imagine you can drive a fast car like a supercar on gravel roads like those you can find in Australia and elsewhere.
There is also a big difference between a supercar and a fast car. A big, ordinary sedan with a twin-turbo engine or even a sports car can be a fast car, but it cannot be a supercar. Supercars are fast cars that are specially designed to be fast in all circumstances, including round bends, not just in a straight line.
There are plenty of supercars in the world today, and more will be built - but only in thousands a year, not the millions of ordinary cars pouring out pf the factories - so the supercar world is assured a future.