If there is a large number of auto self-media that pay attention to major platforms, it is not difficult to find a very interesting phenomenon, that is, the more they understand the car, the more they understand the car culture, the more media people will not hang the word "supercar" on the side or write it in the words, and the more they hope that the "Bo out of place" of the young but can not move "super running", "super running" is not finished, is a sports car on the supercar, and even saw some self-media in the introduction of Ferrari 412 such GT 2 + 2 coupe or Porsche 911 are also titled "supercar" As an adjective; what's more, some big V numbers will directly divide the sports car into "supercar" and "GT sports car" (the original words of the video are: this Portofino is a GT sports car rather than a mid-engine supercar), even if Ferrari can afford you, borrow a car to shoot a video for you, don't need to be so uncultured tose toe, right?
What is a supercar? Why do so many people flock to it without much understanding? Or through the perspective of automobile culture and historical development, let's sort out the premise and endorsement of the car for all fans to be justifiably called "Supercar" or "SuperCar".
Figure: The types of models and their subsequent derivatives seen in the figure have become "supercars" in the mouths of many media editors in China, which is a big mistake, they can only be regarded as Sportscar level, translated into sports cars or sports cars, far less than supercar grades.
Pictured: Bentley Speed Six coined the word Supercar in an ad in the Times, but no one disputed it because it was a well-deserved supercar in terms of workmanship and performance, and there was also an endorsement to participate in Le Mans.
Picture: The first supercar recognized by the automotive industry is it, the love fast Tipo 33 Stradale, which was launched in 1967, whether it is racing genes or handling performance, power performance, and price, etc., in that era is the ceiling of the industry, Miura dares to call itself a supercar in front of it, at that time it was laughed at by the people of the world, right, it is a shame!
Of course, in the domestic car fan circle, because most people only see Lamborghini Lin BaoJiani's fame today, because they really understand the historical development process of this brand, and do not know how they are "defined by the media industry", they arbitrarily named Miura as "the first super sports car", in fact, this is wrong, at that time Lamborghini was at best a mosquito-type car factory, not to mention in the racing industry, even in the field of civilian cars, Can only be regarded as an alternative or infidel, in addition to two or three engineers who are a little famous in the car world, whether from the brand status or performance, it is difficult to hope to love the back, this gap is not a lamp position, but several streets, this is the reality at that time, in such a reality, which media editor and car reporter will launch a "super sports car" Title for an obscure sports car workshop Miura? You have to know that it was in the 60s, an era of racing booms, can play or not, don't blow, pull out the track to know.
Introduced here, the birth of Supercar is known, the Bentley Speed Six in 1926, which at that time meant supercar, or luxury GT; the first "supercar" recognized by the automotive industry was the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale in 1967, which means the civilian version of the model created by orthodox racing technology.
Picture: The author never denied that the Miura is a good car, it pioneered the RMR layout that places the V12 engine horizontally in front of the rear axle, but one yard to one yard, the street car of the RMR layout is not its original, it is also inspired by the French, and in addition, with the status of The Limbo Gini at that time, in addition to the background of the production of tractors, it is difficult to sit on an equal footing with the traditional racing giants such as Aiku and Ferrari, not to mention that someone will define it as "Supercar", history is history. How is it different from the old US secretary of state who does not understand history and speaks in a chaotic manner?!
But not long after, the two oil crises of 1973 and 1979 almost all the world's sports car manufacturers fell into crisis, many companies went out of business, and many companies sold, so in an era of poor sales and self-danger, almost no one did not have the courage to continue to launch new high-horsepower sports cars on the original carburetor engine, most of the car manufacturers were eating the old, and a little self-motivated began to introduce new engine management systems to save fuel consumption, so the 60s just emerged" The Supercar boom was chilled in the 70s, and it was in the 1980s that the iconic event was that the FIA issued a Group B in 1982 to replace the Group 4 and 5 categories, which was cancelled in 1986 because of the crazy performance that led to accidents, but it was also these four years that gave the word Supercar a foundation: First, it can be called Supercar. It must be the street version of the racing car, that is, the predecessor of the street version must have a racing version in front, its mechanical layout must be the same as the racing version, and the power system can be reduced according to the road use environment; secondly, it refers to those who produce 200 vehicles in a specified time in order to meet the B group competition, which is the origin of the so-called "limited edition model", before which those models with scarce production can only be regarded as insufficient capacity and insufficient demand, only after 1982, This side is to meet the minimum production requirements for race certification, and the other side is called a "limited edition" business practice by manufacturers. These two points are the basic conditions for judging whether a car belongs to the Supercar supercar, those models that are sold at sky-high prices only because of insufficient production capacity, are not supercars, and are not eligible to be crowned with the honor of "supercar".
Pictured: Ferrari 288 GTO is based on the chassis of the 308, put into a newly developed F114 engine, and in June 1985 received FIA Group B certification, the total production of 272 vehicles, to meet the requirements of 200 vehicles, Ferrari officially defined the 288 GTO as their first Supercar, and did not define the 250 GTO or 250 LM as the first, although the subsequent F40 has no Group B competition, But its spirit is passed on.
Pictured: Porsche 959, each technical parameter of this car is built according to the B group competition, but when it completed all the works, the B group was canceled, so it did not get the Group B group certification number, which is also a pity for the 959 car, the contemporary Ferrari 288 GTO completed the certification, plus less production, so the collection value is much higher than the 959.
Group B is divided into nine exhaust capacity levels, namely more than 5000cc, below 5000cc, below 4000cc, below 3000cc, 2500cc, 2000cc and 1.6L, 1.3L, 1.0 liters, etc. If the turbocharging system is used, it is calculated × 1.4 on the basis of the actual exhaust volume, taking Ferrari's 288 GTO as an example, its F114B engine has an exhaust capacity of 2855cc, if it × 1.4, It was exactly 3997cc; as for the Porsche 959 of the same level, the exhaust volume was 2849cc, which was also in the group below 4000cc.
In this era, there are many models that can meet the certification of Group B, but a considerable part of them are modified from existing models, so it is almost difficult for such cars to be crowned with supercar honors in later generations, and here there is a third definition that can become "Supercar": that is, to be independently developed to meet the competition rules, plus the two premises of "from racing" and "limited" in the front, which are the three elements that supercar can be born, after all, in the list of Group B group cars And the Peugeot 504, and the Lancer 2000 Turbo, this kind of car can't be called a supercar, right? However, the Peugeot 205 T16, Renault 5 Turbo, Ford RS200 and other street models specially developed for Group B cars, and limited production, and the mechanical layout is exactly the same as the car, can still be called "supercar" definition.
Pictured: According to the three definitions that can be selected as a "supercar", the Ford RS200 and its Peugeot 205 T16 and Renault 5 Turbo, which also participate in rally events, are completely in the category of supercars.
Pictured: If you ask "Is the Peugeot 205 T16 a supercar?" I believe that many people think that it is not because it is a Peugeot (not a professional sports car manufacturer) or because it only has more than 200 horsepower, but the author believes that it is a supercar, and it is one of the milestones of the supercar, because it has created a new layout of mid-engine + four-wheel drive, and every definition of supercar can be met, how can it not be supercar?
Although Group B was cancelled in 1986, but the essence of Group B did not die, in the following years, Group B has been modified many times to become today's GT category, and the Group C race that was born at the same time has become the standard of the prototype car category and has evolved to this day, and many cars in this group have been legally licensed on the road after being decommissioned, and this type of car has also supplemented the "supercar" category that can be seen on the road, but looking at the list of models in Group C, In fact, the only most common is the Porsche 962.
Pictured: Is the Porsche 962 a supercar? Of course, definitely! It is also the ceiling of the supercar, specially developed for the Group C race, a small number, after a slight modification can be legally on the road, it is also one of the few C group cars that can be converted into a street version of the sports car after retirement.
After The B group was cancelled, it began to use the new S group competition to replace, and the performance requirements in the group were reduced, such as the maximum horsepower can not exceed 300 horses, the production only needs to exceed 10 cars, but the new race is not widely accepted, there are still many B group as the standard model in the 80s and 90s, the most well-known include ferrari F40, Bugatti EB110 and so on. In 1994, the German Jürgen Barth and two Frenchmen, Patrick Peter and Stéphane Ratel, formed the GT tournament with the initials of their surnames, which is the BPR GT Championship, and in 1997, the FIA built the FIA GT event on the basis of this event, and divided it into gt1, GT2, G2 and G3, and later added the GT3 category. In this case, gt1 and GT2 must be based on the premise of the street version of the model, the output must not be less than 25, and it is precisely because of this that the four major supercars at that time were born: Ferrari F50, Mercedes CLK-GTR, Porsche 911 GT1, McLaren F1, which also became the masterpiece of "supercar born of the event", and then, in order to save research and development and production costs, Many manufacturers either run to the LMP categories that have no production requirements, or simply use the existing models to transform them into GT2, GT3 or GT4 racing cars.
Figure: Is it difficult to see such a specially built model with a racing purpose in today's car world, which is not unrelated to the economic environment after 2008 and the rise of electric vehicles later, such sports cars do not have commercial benefits to speak of, whether it is research and development costs or time costs, build a loss, the only thing that can be earned is fame, which is too vain.
Figure: Today, the attributes of many sports cars have been flipped, and they will use a car that has been mass-produced for racing transformation to meet the requirements of a certain group of FIA, since it is a mass production car transformation, there is no problem of whether to meet the production requirements, and it is a big deal to run the LMP group.
From the above explanation, you may also find that today, the traditional sense of "super sports car" has actually gradually disappeared after 2010, and many so-called super sports cars are actually more likely to take over the title of "Supercar" under the big tree planted by their predecessors.
There are four major conditions for being called a "Supercar supercar":
1. The street version born to meet the production required by the competition;
2. The chassis and mechanical layout of the street car version and the racing version are exactly the same;
3. It is a model independently developed specifically to meet the competition;
4. Although the thrust-to-weight ratio and torsional-weight ratio are very strong, whether the supercar is or not has nothing to do with the number of parameters of the power performance, and the exhaust volume should find the FIA group rules of the same era.
Those who don't have a racing endorsement, or only have any New North lap speed, or can't come up with any models that can prove their mechanical performance except for dead expensive, please change the name, they really don't deserve the essence of the Supercar!