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YOUR RESEARCHI was asked, " Was a 996 a considered Supercar during the production years?"
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fastest production car in the world in its time
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It was the fastest production car in the world in its time.
I was asked, " Was a 996 a considered Supercar during the production years?"
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IIRC at one point a commonly used term for cars lie the Countache was "exotic car."
I was asked, " Was a 996 a considered Supercar during the production years?"
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I was asked, " Was a 996 a considered Supercar during the production years?"
worst form of the proverbial "red-headed-step-child"
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They looked upon this new birth with a wince as if it was the worst form of the proverbial "red-headed-step-child".
I was asked, " Was a 996 a considered Supercar during the production years?"
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Too many boxes it doesn't check off to be a supercar.
I was asked, " Was a 996 a considered Supercar during the production years?"
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I was asked.
Is Porsche 911 a supercar?
So I spent some time researching "Supercar"
In certain decades, the 911 was referreed to a European Supercar. But the moniker seems to have come and gone over the decades, some years it was considered a Gran Touring others European Sportscar.
So let the debate began.
The rules, the classification of the moniker had to have been used when the car was displayed and the track numbers published before they hit the dealerships.
To be fair all considerations should in 996gtr2, C4s, Aer o Coupes. Cabs, etc.
We are all togther in this.
This should be good debate over the weekend.
Be willing to back up your claim. Just in case fellow rennlist members want to debate your statement
Let the fun began
'David
Nope! They're close, but I think a lot has to do with the production numbers. Gear heads of the day seemed to think that if there's a lot of them, they can't be a "supercar".
Now what do I think? I think they're a supercar!
Carrera GT was a hypercar.
In the lexicon of the day, the 996 Turbo was considered a supercar. Don't believe me, look up the Top Gear review with Clarkson, he calls it a supercar. That's good enough for me.
^True^
That is why I said all models.
I cant remember the magazines that names the 996 Turbo the world's best super car, early 2000s
What about the turbos in the 1980s, Those cars ruled the ring
There were no Mclarens or Bugatti 1000 hp cars in the mid 1980s
Tried to find it. Couldn�t.
In 2010 Clarkson wrote: �
I then tried a 911 Turbo convertible. And this was fairly nasty as well for reasons Richard Hammond explained. The 911 is supposed to be a sports car. Fitting a turbo tries to turn it into something it is not - a supercar.�
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/jer...on-porsche-911
I get your point and am not trying to argue. But the only thing I could find in writing was that. I find some videos but need to watch them later. Wouldn�t be surprised if he flipped flopped on this, Clarkson is a great entertainer and prone to exaggeration.
+996 - not a supercar
IMO it's most definitely a sports car
Thats again IMO what the designers and engineers set out to do - build the next 911 which is fundamentally a sports car
Want a Porsche supercar from the era... Buy a Carrera GT
I don't think production #s should dictate super or hyper car. Should be just about performance. IMHO cars that require Y speed rated tires are super cars. I think that includes GT2, GT3, Turbo 996s.
Hypercars are somewhere north of 200mph and way above my paygrade
My 996 is a SuperCar. Superduper SuperCar.
Just look at the beauty, She just screams SuperCar....
I am joking, in case you were confused by my attempt at humor.
996? No. Only �supercar� part of 996 were the 996.1/Boxter lights for the GT-1.
911? Yes. Mid-70�s. Porsche 930 Turbo, 512 BB, Countach were that period�s �supercars�.
My point was
2000-2004
What was the top the line Porsche?
What was the considered the standard for a supercar in the EARLY 2000s?
I agree with op, production numbers have nothing to do with designation of Supercar.
If the ladder is sportscar, supercar then hypercar, there was the Enzo and Diablo in that time period.
Are they super not hyper?
The key part of the question, in the production years.
Google searches blend in more current years as setting standards.
Back when the 996 was still in production, I think the 996 GT2 would definitely have been considered a supercar. I think it also could have been argued, at that time, that the standard 996 Turbo and GT3 were also supercars. However, all of the various 996 Carrera models were NOT supercars IMHO. I feel the same way about the type 993, 997, and 991 cars during their production runs.
History has a way of making today's hypercars tomorrow's supercars and so on down the line.
Is an early 911 still a sports car when a standard mid 90s VW can out perform it ?
Last week I saw a Ferrari 288 GTO - I was ignorant of it - looked like a crappy 308.
Later that day, I researched it and learned they sell for $2.5 - 3.5 million. It might have been the 'first' supercar but most 996s out perform it. (GTO 0-60 5.0s, top speed 179)
996 Turbo
Properly maintained and tuned still a supercar today
When you punch the throttle and watch the .9 PSI hit as you fly past everyone - you will agree
I disagree - IMO the 996 in any form is not a supercar - was never meant to be.
A Carrera GT, GT1, 918 etc. They are supercars.
We have sports cars - they are excellent and amazing sports cars.
It was born in chaos. Things like the "boy bands", baggy jeans, beanie babies, Monica Lewinsky, OJ Simpson, and the world wide web stole most of the attention of popular culture. The word CAFE was once a nice word that reminded one of smooth coffee, warm bread, and great conversation, but to the automotive engineers, it became profanity.
Amidst the craziness of the 90s, we saw lots of innovations and out of that chaos came the Porsche 996 - it was a very special and unique birth that signaled a radical change in direction to a much desperate company. Like in baseball, the company saw itself down in the last inning, two outs, and the bases full. All that remained necessary to win was a talented substitute batter - a person that could bring victory. Porsche chose an unlikely person that wasn't among their own. That person didn't come to the home plate with size and strength, but with knowledge, skill, and wisdom to hit the ball out of the park and that's exactly what he did.
With that victory came the birth of a legend.
While the birth of this child was marveled by many in the automotive world, it was not welcomed by all the older 911 generations and shunned as a bastard child. They looked upon this new birth with a wince as if it was the worst form of the proverbial "red-headed-step-child". But to the founder, it was beautiful and the last hope for the company's survival. The car became an instant success unlike any before it. And with much gratitude, the founder traveled to the lone batter and thanked him for saving the company.
Although the child has experienced many growing pains and needed quite a bit of surgery, it has proven to have every bit of the Porsche DNA that started the beloved company many moons ago.
Therefore, it will always be a "super" car. If anything, to save the company we deeply admire.
Yep, I recently re-watched that one. And frankly, Tiff Needell's opinion is good enough to me :-)
I guess I dont myself consider it a Super Car as such... more a Sports Car.... but peoples re-action to mine is certainly that they consider it exotica. It's a special car no question. It's a Porsche 911 - they are always special.
The 996 is a super car, but not a supercar.
I could see an argument where the GT2 or Turbo S could be considered a supercar in their time since not a lot of cars could keep up with them in handling and power.
Nope.
Lambo's with mid engine V12s
Ferrari's with flat 12s. 288 only V8 maybe qualifies
any Bugatti after 1971
McClaren - all
Noble - all
And a few other one-offs.
Porsche CGT, 959(due to homologation), maybe, possibly the last 2 years of 930 squeeze into the 'supercar' category. 996 is the Boxster with the engine flipped around the other way. Not ever on the supercar radar.
YMMV, objects in mirror, contents have settled, and may cause **** leakage
I don't consider any late model 911 or variant to be a super car.
Going to stir the pot. IMO, the car has to be designed with the intent to be a super car. Look at any lambo, they are designed ground up with an intent to be a super car. Now look at the 911, while they are very well designed, they are designed as luxury sports cars. I don't think modifying a car to improve its performance necessarily then qualifies it as a super car. For example, if I took a B5 RS4 and modify it to put down 700+hp, it doesn't then qualify it as a super car. It's just a really awesome car.
From my memory, the term "supercar" came about when the 959 and the Ferrari F40 came to market.
996 in regular form wouldn't be a supercar; the Turbo and GT models would probably be.
I don't think there were any hypercars because no one had made up that term. Car's get faster and these new terms are made up so people can try and orally classify cars as they enter new performance envelopes. As such, hypercar eventually will be an irrelevant term for new cars. It'll be megacar or superdoopercar or some other made up hyperbolic nonsense. IIRC at one point a commonly used term for cars lie the Countache was "exotic car."
It kind of reminds me of F1's tire choice old naming structure. There were Soft, Supersoft, Ultrasoft, and Hypersoft compounds. That's even ignoring the medium and hard compounds. When you have too many names for things without clear distinctions, you undermine the point of even having those names.
I love my 996.2 C4S Cab, but the 996 (or any 911) is not a Supercar. My other car was the first Supercar; the Lamborghini Miura. What is the criteria? Performance? Sure. But if performance if all it takes, is a Nissan GT-R a supercar? NO. By any credible standard, LIMITED PRODUCTION is most certainly a key criteria. It needs to have stood out in its time against its peers.
Gil
A supercar
is one of the highest classes for cars. These cars are typically the best of the best, and are in extremely limited quantities. Supercars are exotic cars, and that means they have great style, as well as incredible performance. These cars are among the fastest in the world, and have the best sport handling out there (in their day). A supercar has a certain mystique associated with it. They are usually limited to a certain amount of vehicles built, that way there is some type of exclusivity to own one. Not only is the price usually well beyond the average, but it becomes a status symbol to own one of these cars.
Here's another reference:
https://drivetribe.com/p/whats-the-d...TM-qOgHQl4MG3Q
If there are 3 defined categories:
Sportscar
Supercar
Hypercar
What is a hypercar?
It all goes back to late 1990s early 2000s production, not looking back from today.
It was an interesting topic I thought.
Thanks for all the input
The Hypercar is a new category that has come in the last couple of years for the super expensive cars like the Bugatti, La Ferrari, etc. Cars whose prices start at $1M+. While most of us may never own a Supercar, thankfully many of us can enjoy fun every day with a strong performance sports car like the Porsche 996. Plenty of performance for real-world streets.
Gil
R&T Coolest Supercars of 2000's :
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...2000s/?slide=8
One of the cars is a 996 GT2, for what that is worth. I think we have our answer on the Carrera.
The fact of the matter: most supercars that came immediately before the 996 were turds in the performance department. They may have been BEAUTIFUL and made FANTASTIC noises, but as far as performance goes, they were steamers. Rolling brownouts, maybe even a Chicago chili dog. Anyone with a 4-cylinder Italian car will tell you that it takes at least 20 years of ownership to earn a week's worth of trouble-free driving...you get THREE TIMES that legendary reliability with every 12-cylinder Ferrari!
Around this time, Porsche decided to embrace "the future" by adding radiators to the parts list.
Revolutionary.
On the plus side, the new (waterlogged) M96 makes 300ish HP in "base" trim, and the 996 is light enough to destroy nearly every drug dealer in Miami light-to-light. Praise Jesus and pass the LN Engineering catalog!
Yes, it's as fast as a whole lot of what we called "supercars" in the 80's and 90's, even the base model.
No, that doesn't make it a supercar.
Can we derail this thread just for a minute and talk about that Miura. Good gravy. I think it's still the most spectacularly good looking road car ever made. How does it actually drive? You hear all kind of mixed things about them. The experience is always special, but some say they are kind of difficult and are more like driving a gorgeous tractor, others say they really come alive on fast sweeping roads.
The Lamborghini Miura is what first got me into sports cars as a kid. Back then I built models and bought magazines to lust after these cars. Eventually I realized my dream to buy one. It was a bit of a barn find for me over 20 years ago. I kept it preserved versus restored as I believe in originality. Many of the restored Miuras are not as the factory produced them. I bought my Miura to drive, and every time I got "on it" the sound of the V-12 right behind me was always glorious. The car is just a bit over 40" high, and the seating position is like a go-cart with your legs straight out towards the pedals as the car is so low to the ground. The Miura was produced before we had regulations that required all kinds of things to be tacked on. No electronic anything. It was hand formed aluminum surrounding a high performance V-12. A good power to weight ratio for its day. I love sharing my Miura and have entered it in many Concours d'Elegance over the years. It was my way of giving back and lettering everyone enjoy this spectacular blast from the past. Every time I brought it out (and especially when I opened the front and rear bonnets, it always drew the biggest crowd. It was the fastest production car in the world in its time. The Miura brought mid-engine and many racecar technologies into production cars well before Ferrari did (Enzo was very conservative that way-The mid-engine Ferrari Boxer didn't come out until seven years after Lamborghini came out with the Miura). I have loved all my Ferraris over the years, but nothing will equal my Miura in terms of being special in the automotive world. Decades after it was produced the Miura still consistently lands in the lists of the most beautiful sports cars ever produced.
Gil
Gil
Wow!
Wow!
That car is superb.
Classy lines and I bet it can sure haul the mail when those 12 cylinders are firing in the upper rpm range.
You win
Now post an audio/video of that car.
I just uploaded a video as I drive my Miura. I mounted a Go-Pro to one of my other sports cars and my wife drove it as a chase car. Notice how much lower the Miura is compared to cars I'm passing.
You Tube
Gil
Gil, your posts are making it, I hope, pretty obvious what the differences between a supercar are, vs the base 996 sports car.
The Miura is a supercar. Are some of these cars already over $1M?
The 996GT2 might be a supercar, but I don�t know if the 996 GT3 or 996TT is. Is a tough sell. Keep in mind the terms supercar and hypercar are older than people think. It�s not just how much power something has (Dodge Demon isn�t), or how rare something is (1983 Corvette), or how fast something is (Honda Civic Type-R). It has to be a combination of all those things and more to make it into the category.
Here's a recent video from Tiff testing some true modern-day supercars. Unfortunately, seeing the age progression of Tiff between the two videos gives a sense of just how old the 996 has become.
You Tube
The reason I don't take exception to Tiff's description of the 996 as a supercar: driven by a semi-capable driver, the car has limits that EASILY outclass its contemporaries, even the supercars.
I believe the 996's LACK of uniqueness - the very fact that it was mass-produced - makes it much more lovable as a sports car. If it had been produced in the hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands, it simply wouldn't be available to us and we wouldn't be willing to drive it in the way you have to drive a 911 to properly enjoy it.
Put differently: the 996's lack of exclusivity made me more likely to own one (lower cost of entry) and makes me comfortable enough tossing it around in ways I wouldn't if it was irreplaceable.
NIce video; thanks for posting. No doubt about it - technology marches on. The driver on track in this video makes the point of how important brake performance is. My Miura was the first to introduce Girling disc brakes on a production road car (great for it's time, but long since surpassed). Not so long ago the Ferrari Enzo ($3M+ now) was the Supercar standard bearer on performance, but already my Ferrari 458 Spider meets/beats most of the specs of the Enzo. My ceramic brakes can be driven hard on the track all weekend long, and never fade. And unlike the GT2 RS that got hard to handle on the straights, the Ferrari is smooth as silk. For me personally, I prefer naturally aspirated engines. I like a design that can make its power goals without having to be blown, and the sound from a naturally aspirated engine to me is much better (not whiney). The 458 model is the last naturally aspirated mid-engine road car Ferrari will ever produce (they are all going turbo and/or hybrid, ex. La Ferrari).
Gil
As long as there have been car journalists, there has been inconsistent use of terms. Most people do not assign the Hypercar designation to only those with hybrid technology.
For example, here is a list of one writer's Hypercar list. Most of these are NOT Hybrids.
Bugatti Chiron
Bugatti Veyron
Ferrari FXX Enzo
Ferrari LaFerrari
Hennessey Venom GT
Jaguar XJ220
Koenigsegg Agera R
Koenigsegg One:1
Lamborghini Aventador SV Roadster
Lamborghini Reventon
Lamborghini Veneno
Maserati MC12
Maybach Exelero
McLaren F1
McLaren P1
Mercedes CLK GTR AMG
Mosler MT900S
Pagani Huayra
Porsche 918 Spyder (a Hybrid Hypercar)
Saleen S7 TT
SSC Ultimate Aero
Vector W8
Zenvo ST1
Hypercar is a relatively new term. The term "supercar" was normally reserved for the likes of the Miura, Countach, Testarossa, XJ220, McLaren F1 etc.... the really wild and crazy cars that are blistering fast (for their time) and not very practical at all.
What makes the 911 Turbo so awesome is supercar performance and you can comfortably give your mum a ride to her afternoon tea time with it. Try that with a Diablo (well my mom would be OK, she's driven a few Ferrari's...but she's not normal).
I love Clarkson, but his word is not gospel and if you watch him enough, he contradicts himself a lot.
Clarkson once talked about the newest crop of Supercars (mostly the Lamborghini's) are not as "super" as they once were. Sure they are fast, but they are also reliable, easy to drive.....won't try to kill you....one of his requirements for a supercar in that particular segment. He actually went on to say many modern supercars are rather boring.
While we are at it, why not fire up the old debate on weather or not the 996 is even a sports car
Actually this debate is what makes the 911 so awesome, it's multiple things. While the base 996 and even the turbo are closer to a grand touring car, the GT2 is supercar-ish, the GT3 is a bare bones sports car..... best of all worlds with one platform!
While we are at it, why not fire up the old debate on weather or not the 996 is even a sports car
Actually this debate is what makes the 911 so awesome, it's multiple things. While the base 996 and even the turbo are closer to a grand touring car, the GT2 is supercar-ish, the GT3 is a bare bones sports car..... best of all worlds with one platform![/QUOTE]
In follow-up to my recent post on my Lamborghini Miura, I thought I would pass along the following link to the famous intro to the 1969 movie "The Italian Job". Rossano Brazzi drives the Miura (which is the same red/orange with silver rocker panels as mine) on the beautiful twisty mountain roads. As it crosses other local cars on the road, it is immediately clear how the Miura broke new ground for a production road car as it looked nothing like the other cars on the road. Through the opening music you can hear the sound of the glorious V-12. Check it out:
You Tube
I was happy to recently hear the original Miura from this movie intro was rediscovered:
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/l...-job-restored/
Gil
It's interesting to see how the "State of the Art" advances over time. The Miura was the fastest production car in the world in its time.. When I take my Miura to the higher speeds it gets scary. I can't imagine what it feels like at its original top speed.
Gil
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