Is the s550 platform considered a muscle car or sportcar??

[Idaho2018GTPremium]

Within the vehicle forecasting world, there is a large over-arching category called “Sports Car” that has a lot of little sub-categories. Sorta like my earlier “all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares” comment, everything in the sub-categories are considered “Sports Cars”, but then you can slice the categories even more specifically.

So, for example, if Sports Cars is the rectangle, it covers everything from say Miata to Chiron. But then in that rectangle, there are squares for different types and price points of sports cars. So a pony car is a sports car that fits certain sorta specific parameters. A muscle car fits a different set of parameters. A GT fits a different set of parameters. In some ways, though, they overlap. I think 4-cylinder Mustangs are a great example of a pony car. But the 2.3T with PP is definitely closer to the original definition of a sports car, and the GT500 is a Sports Car, a Muscle Car, GT Car all rolled into one. It’s all in how the company wants to market it. Personally, I prefer the term Performance Car for Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, Chargers, etc.

I took a look at RL Polk Registration data. Mustang, Camaro, Challenger all fall under the category “Non-Luxury Sport Mid-size”. Cars like Corvette, 911, BMW Z-series, BMW M-Series, and Supra fall under Luxury Sport. McLaren 720s, Ferrari 812, Lamborghini Aventador, and of course Bugatti Veyron / Chiron and similar exotica would fall under Exotic Sports Car.

I also generally use the term Performance car when I refer to the type of car my Mustang is. I have no problem with sporty car either. It accelerates fast, handles well (esp. w/ MagneRide), and can turn really well. I wouldn't quite call my GT PP1 a sports car, though. It is also a Grant Tourer IMO. Although, for how capable these cars are, they are essentially sports cars compared to the avg. car on sale.

The thing regarding that Road and Track article is, I have no problem calling a GT350R or SS 1LE or ZLE or CFTP GT500 a sports car even though it doesn't meet that antiquated definition of a convertible 2 seater like a Miata. If that was the case, there'd be what, 4 sports cars for sale nowadays?

I hate that the Germans are calling something with 4 doors and a fastback a coupe. I agree that words have to mean something, and coupe means two doors. I also hate that they use "turbo" to describe the Taycan. Ridiculous. Turbo, short for turbocharger, is defined as: "a supercharger driven by a turbine powered by the engine's exhaust gases." Not even close to applying to a powerful elelctric vehicle. It's almost as bad as calling a soccer mom EV crossover a Mustang.

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[13GetThere]

Hey, the Tiger was just a for instance. I had 3 friends that had real sports cars. One was a Sunbeam; I hated that thing. One was a Triumph TR6; didn't care for that one either. The best one was an Auston Healy with a 289 if I remember correctly; never got to ride in that one. The Sunbeam and the Triumph were perfect examples of why I would never get a British sports car.

 

[10SpeedDemon]

Ford calls it a sports car, (says so right on the window sticker) so that is good enough for me.

never noticed that until recently

 

[frank s]

This here is the epitome of "Sports Car": Lotus Élan S2 from 1966. Lightweight two-seater with minimal (but sufficient) creature comforts. Customarily and consistently the fastest showroom stock autocrosser on street tires, putting the Corvettes and Porsche 911s in their place. Tiny little contact patches notwithstanding. Changing directions and speeds is much easier when the momentum is invested in a 1300-pound vehicle.

Perhaps that's a decent descriptor of a sports car: Changes vector direction and strength more effectively/efficiently than other car categories.

 

[W.O.T. Stang]

To me, a muscle car is old-school muscle. Loud, fast in a straight line only, burns your eyes at idle, rattles your teeth out.. doesn't brake or corner well - think anything made in the 60's-70's. If i had to take a wild guess.. i would call our mustangs 'grand touring' (after all.. isn't that what GT stands for?). It is a car that is easily capable to perform extended journeys comfortably, while having a performance side as well.

The hardest part of this discussion is the confusion on the definition of each term. In the world of mustangs back to the early 80s, i would consider a fox-body to be a muscle car.. up until the s197 redesign - which were better than the SN-95/fox-2 platform, but the S550 is a complete redesign of refinement which i believe puts it in an almost luxury type category in the world of performance cars (dare i compare a 401A car to an M2).

In the end, it is whatever you believe it to be. But myself, i find it hard to believe i am sitting in a mustang each time im out. Until i put my right foot down, or see the shiny Mustang logo on the wheel in front of me.

 

[JohnDoe]

Looks muscular but drives kinda sporty, I call this MURICA

 

[Johnnybee]

Best thing you can do with a TR6 is put the body on the frame/drivetrain of a Miata.

I took care of a friend's TR6 at one point as he was out of the country. It was when I had my TR8 and one night at the club meeting I spoke to one of the TR6 guys asking him about the ride, as I thought maybe something was wrong with the car. He replied, "If it feels like something halfway between an ox cart and a truck, it's fine."

 

[Hack]

Hi - I’m naive, but what does tramline mean and why does the GT 350 do it? Thanks, Bruce

Wide tires tend to follow the contours of the road. You'll be driving straight and feel the wheels trying to do otherwise.

The term comes from what it felt like to have your tires get caught following city streetcar/trolley . . . wait for it . . . tramcar tracks. You'd feel a sudden fairly strong tug on the steering wheel as the tires suddenly settled in to following the tram tracks instead of the direction you'd intended. Us older guys are perhaps more likely to have encountered this.

It's mainly a wide tire phenomenon (front tires in particular since us human drivers can't resist the tug as well as the toe rods on an IRS), though wheel width can be a contributor. Some tires are worse than others. I think things like 'conicity' and 'ply steer' are somehow involved.


Norm

I think those definitions are good, but some of the tramlining to me is also about feedback in the steering wheel and road feel. Most modern cars have very numb steering and there's no feedback at all. The GT350 does provide feedback to the driver. Too much feedback for some people.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I think those definitions are good, but some of the tramlining to me is also about feedback in the steering wheel and road feel. Most modern cars have very numb steering and there's no feedback at all. The GT350 does provide feedback to the driver. Too much feedback for some people.

At their best, EPAS systems don't provide as much feedback or 'feel' as a good hydraulic system.

In the case of the Mustang's EPAS the pull-drift and active nibble compensations almost certainly remove even more of the feedback we used to get - they're constantly working in the background to reduce the tendency for the car to drift down road crown toward the gutter and compensating for small effects that I think even include slight wheel imbalances.

You may not get much of a tug at the wheel, because the EPAS acts sort of like a filter between the front tires (that are still doing the tramlining thing) and your hands. Yeah, numb, and people are starting to take that as the way any combination of car, tires, and wheels should feel like.


Norm

 

[IPOGT]

So me and a friend of mine was having a debate about the s550 platform, whether it’s a considered a muscle car or a sport car. I would love to hear you guys take on this

That debate happened on here in 2015 when the S550 just came out. This thread is a renaissance so to speak.

 

[Balr14]

Way back in the 60s, we swapped a 283 Chevy and drivetrain into a 53 MG TD. It was a crude swap, but it was a blast to drive... the perfect sports car. I would have kept it longer, but I didn't have a good place to park it and it didn't have roll-up windows and the side curtains and top were not adequate for any kind of weather protection. About 5 - 6 years ago, I came across another MG/Chevy swap that was much more professionally done... even got writeups in magazines and web sites. It was called the Plumley MG. I was in the process of making a deal to buy it when somebody "stole" it on me. I've been looking for it again, ever since...

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