The Poor Man's Porsche

I was on my way home from a barbeque at a friend’s home yesterday when I had a thought. Okay, my wife had a thought. But we’re married, so her thoughts are supposed to be our thoughts now, or so I’m told. Anyway, as we approached a gas station we noticed a shiny black 70s era Dodge Charger filling up just across the curb from us. As we passed the car my wife turned to me and said, “Why don’t they make good looking sports cars like that anymore?”

I suppose that technically the 70s Charger was created as a muscle car, but the question is a good one. Why don’t they make good looking sports cars anymore? Matter of fact, why don’t’ they make sports cars anymore? I know, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini all make sports cars – great sports cars. But non-elite automobile manufacturers used to produce reasonably priced high performance vehicles as well. Remember the Toyota Supra, the Mazda RX-7, Acura NSX, Nissan 300 ZX, Dodge Viper, the Corvette Stingray? Cars that not only provided exhilarating driving experiences, but also looked really great doing it.

So what happened? The NSX, Supra and RX-7 all dropped off the face of the earth. Mazda (now owned by Ford – which is a whole other columns’ worth of complaints) is currently trying to pass off some bastardized four door family-friendly sedan with a back seat off as a sports car. The Viper, which used to be snarling, curvy, aggressive beast has been “redesigned” into little more than a bright red Sebring. Even the Corvette has been thinned out so much I nearly mistook one for a Saturn last night. Only Nissan continues to produce its sports car (now the 350 Z) and at a time where everyone is obsessed with looking back, has managed to push forward in both design and engineering to enhance a classic. But why are they the only ones.

The obvious answer is that somebody decided that sports cars just weren’t selling anymore. That may be true, but I think there’s something more behind that. The old muscle cars, the Japanese sports cars and the Italian supercars all had/have a few things in common. They crouch low to the ground, all their curves are accentuated, they flare out at the rear wheels and the rear ends are all set higher than the front. Sports cars and muscle cars take their cues from the female anatomy. Ooh, I can hear the steak knives being sharpened in the kitchen, but hear me out. What do men find sexy about women? Sensuous posture, accentuated curves, a little flare of the hips and a high, pert backside. Attraction is attraction, so why should a car be any different?

Now, before the pitchforks and torches reach my front door, what does the sex appeal of the sports car have to do with its disappearance? Well, the 60s and 70s were a time of free love and revolution. It was okay to be sexy, and it was okay to let everyone know you were sexy. Detroit graced us with the Mustang, Charger, Challenger, Chevelle, and the Stingray. But the 80s and 90s brought about a change. Women decided they no longer wanted to be objectified, or viewed in a sexual manner. They wanted to be equal to men in every way possible. So the clothes became asexual, the hairstyles androgynous and the vehicles, well, boring. Ford ripped the soul out of the Mustang, Chevy raked the curves out of the Corvette and Dodge simply sent the Charger to the scrap heap. Fortunately for driving enthusiasts Japan was still a few years behind with their Cultural Revolution and provided us with some fantastic sports car specimens. Unfortunately, the early years of this decade have driven us further from sexy and slammed us hard up against the guardrail of security. Security moms and soccer dads decided they needed some way to get their 1.3 kids, dog and dry cleaning to and from school four blocks from home without ever interrupting the child’s entertainment. So now we have ghastly eight passenger minivans and gas-chugging SUVs complete with LCD screens and video games, and pathetic imitations of formerly inspired names in automotive engineering (see the modern versions of the Malibu and the Charger). And don’t think for a moment that the proliferation of chunky clunky vehicles on the road is unrelated to America’s epidemic of obesity. Do you think a slender, young, hot Brooke Shields would be caught dead in a Scion or a Nitro?

I believe that what we choose to drive is in some way a reflection of who we are, and sports cars to some further extent an image of who we would like to be. As a sports car enthusiast I’m hoping that sometime soon it will be okay to feel sexy again. Right now it doesn’t look good. Fuel economy is still a huge concern and there is no passenger vehicle on the road less sexy than a Prius. Most manufacturers have not invested design time or resources in anything resembling a sports car, and the few who have are trying their darnedest to ruin the very image they are trying to create, maintain or restore. There are actually rumors of four door versions of the upcoming Camaro and Mustang, and we’ve already seen what’s happened to the Charger. But there is hope. I have a picture I took at an auto show seven years ago of a fine specimen of a vehicle that was at that time labeled the Charger. I have to believe that car or some derivation of it is still sitting in a warehouse somewhere in Detroit waiting to be released under some other name. Both Acura and Toyota are at least conceptually toying with the idea of once again producing something akin to the supercar challengers they’ve produced in the past. Unfortunately at this point, only the rich guys can afford the sexy sports cars. But that serves to prove the point, doesn’t it. After all, it’s the rich guys that score the really sexy women too. What is it with us guys and curves?