- The most frequent criticism, however was my use of the term "sedan" to refer to the Mustangs. What I heard is that the Mustang is a "sports car," not a "sedan." Well, ladies and gentlemen, you are dead wrong—and that misunderstanding could be one of the reasons that true sports cars are so hard to find in showrooms in the year 2016.
My only complaint with this article is the authors apparent belief that any of this matters. The author never really defends calling a Mustang a sedan, a label I find ridiculous. A sedan has four doors and a useful back seat. We can solve all of this by adding more categories. Given an option of muscle car, the Mustang fits comfortably there. Don't want to call it a sports car? That's fine. Call it a muscle car. Big engine, obsolete suspension, roars when you step on it and goes in a straight line like a rocket? Muscle car.
I kind of like the idea of umbrella terms, like a car taxonomy. For instance, muscle cars and roadsters could both be types of sports cars. Similarly, trucks, vans, and SUVs could be types of utility vehicles. Though I wonder if that would just lead to even more hair splitting.
A muscle car has fuckall in common with a sports car. Giant american V8s were fundamentally useless on any track that didn't say NASCAR until Caroll Shelby shoved one in an AC Bristol. It wasn't until 1995 that the Corvette wasn't an outright embarrassment around cones.
Sedans are any car that has an A, B, and C pillar. Two door sedans exist and if we were to go by the author's argument that the Ford Mustang is a sedan, by the definition Wikipedia gives us, he's technically right. Just look at this picture of an S-197. Right there, in bright red, is a B Pillar. Though if we were to start fretting, I'd worried about whether or not it'd be appropriate to actually call it a sedan because it's very easy to argue that it doesn't have “adequate passenger space in the rear compartment for adult passengers.” I'm not a very big man. Even I feel cramped in the back seat of a Mustang.
Does that make my Civic coupe a sedan? Or is it a two door sedan as opposed to a four door sedan? Maybe the confusion is popular or common terms versus technical terms. Ask a botanist what a tomato is, and they'll tell you it's a fruit. But that isn't particularly useful when making a fruit pie. Maybe it depends on the audience. Talking to a group of vehicle designers? Referring to a Mustang's structure as being a sedan could make sense. But if I were to list my Civic on Craigslist as a sedan, every single response would call me a liar. That might explain my annoyance with the author. Nobody likes the guy at a party who declares a tomato a fruit. I don't think he knows his audience, or he's deliberately being obtuse to try to feel smarter than them.
Here's the thing - Honda calls it a coupe. This is an easily-defendable statement to make because it's a 2-door hardtop. It might also be referred to as a hatchback, which Honda has used in the past. A 1990 Prelude, on the other hand, could be called a coupe... but also a sedan, but not a hatchback: The confusion is "readily accepted terms" vs. "weird corner case terms." For example, here's Car & Driver speculating in 2013 what a 2015 Mustang SEDAN would look like: Count the doors. So yeah. Tomatoes are fruit, and if you put them in fruit salad, you're an idiot. Then when you write an entire article about why everyone is wrong for hating on your tomato fruit salad, you're a douche.
Does it have a B pillar behind the door and functional back seats? Then yeah. It's a two door sedan according to Wikipedia. kleinbl00 and I kind of talked about that back and forth a bit. What an engineering team might classify the car as and what the marketing team might classify the car as depends on their reasoning. Take it even further, regulatory agencies, whether for racing, emissions, or safety, all have their own criteria. It's a fun thing to talk about, but obviously not everyone is gonna agree. I think when car journalists write their opinion pieces, they have in the back of their mind a goal to get as many angry letters to the editor as possible. If you ever have a weekday afternoon where you find yourself bored with nothing to do, go to the library and look at a few back issues of magazines like Car and Driver and Motortrend and read the letters to the editor. People get their panties in a bunch over the smallest of details.Does that make my Civic coupe a sedan?
Maybe the confusion is popular or common terms versus technical terms.
That might explain my annoyance with the author. Nobody likes the guy at a party who declares a tomato a fruit. I don't think he knows his audience, or he's deliberately being obtuse to try to feel smarter than them.
But a fuckload more people will agree than disagree, and Road and Track are on the wrong side of the argument, and doubling down by being pedantic and whingeing about their audience. I think this is a recent thing. Automobile Magazine never ran like that. Motor Trend never ran like that. I'm willing to believe Road & Track is now because they haven't been worth reading for a long-ass while. 'member these? That's back when Road & Track used to care about precision. Back when they'd give you TRACK specs. Back when they were telling you things you couldn't just grab off the Internet because it involved original research. Now? Call your readers idiots for disagreeing that a fuckin' mustang isn't a sedan but a 240Z is.It's a fun thing to talk about, but obviously not everyone is gonna agree.
I think when car journalists write their opinion pieces, they have in the back of their mind a goal to get as many angry letters to the editor as possible. If you ever have a weekday afternoon where you find yourself bored with nothing to do, go to the library and look at a few back issues of magazines like Car and Driver and Motortrend and read the letters to the editor. People get their panties in a bunch over the smallest of details.
Dear Road and Track: Your magazine is not called "road and sometimes track." It's called fucking ROAD & TRACK. THIS IS WHAT YOU DO YOU CHOADS. That's like Brian Boitano saying he didn't have time to put on his ice skates. Also: Hey fuckhead: So pay attention: In the US, convertibles are roadsters and have been since 30 years prior to your first issue. And in the US, So. Roadsters can be sports cars, sports cars can be roadsters, but if you're going to be pedantic about definitions, at least be CORRECT.They complained that we didn't post laptimes, to which my response was that we just didn't have enough time to get them both a clear track and proper conditions.
They complained that we should have compared a Boss 302 "Laguna Seca" to the 350R, to which my response was that we couldn't get our hands on a Laguna Seca on short notice. It's tough enough coming up with all of the right new cars for a comparison test at the same time. Adding used cars to the mix makes it nearly impossible.
There's another, even more important, reason to describe cars using proper and appropriate names, but we'll come back to that in a moment. Let's return to the question: "What is a sports car?" In the postwar era, a "sports car" was any car that seated two, had a soft top, and could be used for competition. Thus, the Sports Car Club of America. An MG-TC was a sports car, as was an XK-120 or a Jowett Jupiter.
In 1916, the Society of Automobile Engineers defined a roadster as: "an open car seating two or three. It may have additional seats on running boards or in rear deck."[4] Additional seating in the rear deck was known as a rumble seat[5] or a dickey seat.
A sports car (sportscar) is a small, usually two seater, two door automobile designed for spirited performance and nimble handling.[2][3] According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first known use of the term was in 1928.
In Baruth's defense about obtaining track times and obtaining various cars for comparison, from little blurbs and one sentence anecdotes I've read over the years in magazines like Road and Track, Motortrend, Car and Driver, etc., it can be quite a challenge to get everything lined up. There are so many elements in play, from limited availability of press cars to only having a sliver of track time to work with, to manufacturers being afraid of loaning a press car for fear of it being used in a comparison test against some direct competition. I can honestly see how getting a used car of a certain make and model being especially difficult. Chances are, there's no longer an press cars of that make available for one, and for two, finding someone to loan you their car from their private collection could be quite a feat. So while it's their job to try to line things up as best as possible, yeah, they're not gonna hit a home run every time. In fact, I bet it happens more often than any of us really expect and they never bring the issue up unless someone calls them out on it, like in this article. Flaws aside, I was kind of drawn to this article for a few reasons. Yeah, cause cars. I'm a one note kind of guy like that. What really drew me to it though, is that how language really is very organic and how we view and define things through language changes over time. There's tons of causes for it, from expanding on a definition to make it a broader term. If you'd ask me my opinion on the matter, I'd say that the Mustang is a type of sports car and if you wanted to be more specific, it's a muscle car. Does it fit the original, traditional definition? No. But from my perspective, it fits what I think of when I think sports cars today. It's one of those things though, where after reading the article a second and a third time, I really start to wonder whether or not the guy has actually made his point. The more I think about it, the more I think he hasn't. Calling a car one thing or another doesn't really seem like it'd have that much of an impact on whether or not you see a certain type of car in a dealership. Market trends do. He talks about this when he brought up rollover regulations. To expand beyond his example, SUVs and CUVs have killed the station wagon here in the US. They're more accessible, more versatile, and thanks to our wide roles, their size isn't a drawback. In Europe, you'd be hard pressed to find many SUVs, CUVs, and full size pickups. Their roads are too small. So of course, over there, station wagons and light pickups are still a thing. Sports cars are the same. Let's be honest. For the majority of people out there, they're toys. Expensive toys. If we were to speak strictly about sports cars or roadsters, the Mazda Miata is the most affordable one out there, and for just a hair under $29,000 starting out, that's a shit ton of money for a two seater car that can't haul many groceries, can't tow anything, only sits two people, and requires someone dedicated to the point of being near insane to be willing to drive in the winter. Not a lot of people are gonna pay that kind of money. That's doubly true in today's economy. So no, the changing definition of “sports car” isn't what's causing them to dwindle off. It's the economy.
I'm unconvinced. "Roadster" has always meant "something with an open top and not enough seats." "Sports Car" has always meant "something with not enough seats." "Convertible" is something with a top that comes down. "Coupe" is something with two doors. "Sedan" is something with four. "Hatchback" is something where the trunk and the rear glass form part of the roof and part of the trunk. "Station wagon" is a sedan with a glass-enclosed trunk that continues the roofline. These are not controversial definitions, and they have never been assailed by any manufacturer, trade group or journalistic organization. So if you're going to be pedantic about definitions, be pedantic and RIGHT. So sure. Bitch that the Mustang isn't a "sports car." It's not. It's not by any stretch of the definition, at 3800 lbs with a back seat. But it's also not a sedan, dumbass. It's a coupe. Unless it's a convertible. And the reason R&T gets pushback (aside from neglecting the "&Track" half of their masthead) is that the Mustang has always been a coupe, unlike the Thunderbird, which started and ended life as a roadster/sports car. SUVs are station wagons. They have limited utility and aren't sporty at all. Like "Crossover" it's a marketing term. The DMV still calls them "station wagons" and they're right.
Eh. The only thing I'm trying to convince you of is that when it comes to cars, semantics start to get kind of crummy. Now, I'm not pulling these words to pick a fight or anything, but just to show how in depth definitions can become and how our common understanding and acceptance of what something is or isn't can change over time. Sedans are any car that has an A, B, and C pillar. Two door sedans exist and if we were to go by the author's argument that the Ford Mustang is a sedan, by the definition Wikipedia gives us, he's technically right. Just look at this picture of an S-197. Right there, in bright red, is a B Pillar. Though if we were to start fretting, I'd worried about whether or not it'd be appropriate to actually call it a sedan because it's very easy to argue that it doesn't have “adequate passenger space in the rear compartment for adult passengers.” I'm not a very big man. Even I feel cramped in the back seat of a Mustang. Similarly, coupes also have their own elaborate definition and criteria and while it takes a bit of scrolling, towards the bottom of the article you can see that there are four door coupes in existence. Here's where I think semantics start to get crazy and a little silly. I'd honestly and with a straight face call a Mustang a sports car. Just like a lot of people would argue that whether a car should be called a sedan or a coupe rests soley on the number of doors its rocking, I'd say that any car that is built solely for performance can be called a sports car. Not a roadster, but a car built for sport. Both the S-197 and the S-550 Mustangs were built from the ground up with performance in mind. Unlike prior generations, they do not share any underpinnings with more pedestrian cars such the Falcon or Fairmont. In my mind, that makes them sports cars just like I think my FR-S is a sports car. Am I technically wrong? Yeah. Colloquially speaking could I be right? Arguably. I hope you don't think of me as a dick for what I'm about to say, but even this is arguable. The Chevy Blazer was based off the S-10. It's arguably a truck. The Vista Cruiser was built from the same chassis as the Oldsmobile Cutlass. It's arguably a car. No matter how the DMV would want to classify them, the DNA for those two vehicles are very different. If I were to buy a fifth gen El Camino tomorrow and register it with the DMV, they would make me register it as a truck, even though it shares the same chassis as the Monte Carlo. I think one of the best examples that I can think of off the top of my head would be the PT Cruiser, which as far as CAFE standards are concerned, is classified as a minivan. What really messes everything up, at least from what I can gather, is that different people want to use different terms to suit their needs. Marketing companies will call cars one thing in hopes of gaining sales. Engineers will call them something else, because to them being technically correct is not only the best kind of correct, but communicating the correct terms is an essential part of their job. Somewhere in between, you have the lawyers, regulators, and bureaucrats, erasing one shade of gray and filling in the gap with something slightly grayer to suit their needs. Then there's a guy like me, who would be more than happy to debate that the latest two generations of Mustangs deserve to be called sports cars because of how they were designed, while the Ford Focus ST and Fiesta ST don't deserve to be called sports cars, all because they're performance variants to standard commuter models. That guy two towns over that is chomping at the bit for the Ford Focus RS to hit the dealer though? He'd probably argue otherwise."Coupe" is something with two doors. "Sedan" is something with four.
SUVs are station wagons. They have limited utility and aren't sporty at all. Like "Crossover" it's a marketing term. The DMV still calls them "station wagons" and they're right.
1) This is an article in which the author (who whinges that "road & TRACK magazine" can't find track time) lambasts his readers for semantic disagreements while making a number of factual inaccuracies in his definitions. 2) This is an article in which the author (who is one of those assholes who makes motorcyclists look bad) argues that a Ford Mustang is a sports car... but a 240Z isn't. 3) The S-10 is 20 years dead. 4) You're arguing that an f'n Mustang is a sports car, which means your opinions about automobiles are officially null and void. ;-)In some cases, the "sports car" name was used for something that was meant to be an antidote or alternative to traditional sports cars—see "911, Porsche" and "240Z, Datsun."
Though, you have to admit, the discussion that we're having now is so much more interesting than the root article. Actually, he's arguing neither are sports cars. I'm arguing that both are. Also, everyone makes their demographic look bad sooner or later, especially if they're willing to use print as their own personal journal. I actually haven't read that article yet, but since you've pointed it out, I might dive into it. So? Saber Tooth tigers are extinct. Doesn't mean they're no longer mammals. ;) Do I have to go the semantically neutral route of calling it a "performance car?" It's a performance car. Used for sport. That makes it a sports car. :P1) This is an article in which the author (who whinges that "road & TRACK magazine" can't find track time) lambasts his readers for semantic disagreements while making a number of factual inaccuracies in his definitions.
2) This is an article in which the author (who is one of those assholes who makes motorcyclists look bad) argues that a Ford Mustang is a sports car... but a 240Z isn't.
3) The S-10 is 20 years dead.
4) You're arguing that an f'n Mustang is a sports car, which means your opinions about automobiles are officially null and void. ;-)
Sports cars lack back seats. Period. Full stop. This is why an AMX was a sports car but a Javelin was a coupe. Look - I drive a Stealth. It ain't a sports car. It's fast, it handles well and it looks racy but my cousin's Brabus Mercedes shits all over it and always will. I had a TR-7. It's a sports car. It wasn't fast, it handled poorly and it looks like a doorstop but it lacks a back seat. Mustangs are just an embarrassment.