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DOES THE SPORTS CAR EXIST?—A 40-YEAR PERSPECTIVE PART 1
BACK IN MARCH 1984, R&T did a comparison test of “Six 2-Seaters” cited recently here at SimanaitisSays.
This and following images from R&T, March 1984.
Accompanying that comparison test was an article asking “Does the Sports Car Exist?,” in which 11 of the R&T staff shared their (as expected, differing) opinions. Alas, rest their souls, Thos. A. Bryant, Dottie Clendenin, Bill Motta, and Jonathan Thompson are around only in spirit, but here several of the remaining R&T folks offer opinions on this tantalizing question, now seasoned by 40—geez, count them, 40!—years of reflection.
I’ve gleaned tidbits in a space-gobbling Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow from the original article and from recent emails. (I forget whether we even had email back in 1984.) The comments are arranged in 1984 masthead order.
John Dinkel, Editor. Dinkel exercised executive privilege by hogging more ink in his “Miscellaneous Ramblings” column up front. “He couldn’t write them short enough for here,” Jon Thompson wrote in assembling the comments.
Briefly (ha! I get even here), JD wrote in 1984, “Besides, after the Engineering Editor read what I had to say about the Morgan he refused to have his comments within five pages of my remarks.”
In more than two magazine columns up front, JD commented, “Is there a place in today’s sports car world for a traditional ragtop of the Alfa Spider and Pininfarina Spider? Absolutely. Do you think I’m holding onto my 1964 Spitfire simply for its investment value?”
By the way, these days JD has a nifty English Ford Lotus Cortina.
Dennis Simanaitis, Engineering Editor. “A sports car,” I wrote, “is one in which I never feel the urge to smoke. It occupies my hands—not to say my feet, eyes, ears and balance mechanism—in an immensely more pleasurable manner.”
I observed, “A sports car needn’t be driven at 8/10s or more to savor its sensory inputs. Puttering along to a used bookstore in the Morgan, for instance, is a more memorable experience to me than probing the limits of a first-rate sports/GT, among which I number the RX-7 and 300ZX.”
DS, 2024. Well, I haven’t smoked since a mid-1984 acute MI. But I still have string-back driving gloves, which are part of my current definition: A sports car can be driven with string-backs without feeling pretentious.
Our 1965 Morgan Plus Four 4-Passenger Family Tourer was perfect, if a tad fiddly as I got older. My 1990 Miata (our R&T long-term car, no. 348) still delights, even at 8/10s through a freeway onramp.
The existential question conflicts with my appreciation of the Kantian Imperative: Would I will universal practice of my action? Uh, no. Living in the transitional world of fossil fuel-induced climate change, I’m content in letting others drive BEVs (which, by the way, are fabled for their 0-60 times—albeit not combined with practical range).
Dorothy Clendenin, Managing Editor. “A sports car,” Dottie said, “should be nimble, small; make me feel special; give a rakish exhilarated feeling; have a personality that agrees with mine.”
Dorothy Clendenin.
Of the cars in the 1984 comparo: “There is someone out there who is going to love each one of these cars beyond reason…. The best reason is that it lights up the heart.”
Wife Dottie died at the age of 80 in 2021.
Thos. L. Bryant, Executive Editor. “You can talk all you want,” Tom said, “about objective test data for acceleration, skidpad and running the slalom—and most of the other cars will return higher numbers—but a sports car also has to have romance, an aura of history that ties it to the classics of old, and the Alfa and the Morgan do that.”
Tom died at age 76 in 2020.
Joe Rusz, Motor Sports Editor. Joe begin, “I’m getting a bit weary of the string-back-glove set defining a sports car. Where is it written that such cars must be a) open; b) crude, c) British?”
“A sports car,” Joe defined, “is any good handling, spirited, low-volume automobile whose raison d’etre is driving enjoyment.”
I’ve alway enjoyed Joe’s rants as well as his lucid moments. He still has his Porsche 911.
Peter Egan, Senior Editor. “I lean toward the spartan side of sports car design,” Peter wrote, “preferring cars that feel like thinly disguised racing machines to those that feel like thickly disguised family sedans.”
“Absolute performance and speed,” Peter said, “are not as important to me as the sensation of speed.”
PE, 2024. Bless his heart, Peter was the first to respond: “Though I quit smoking some years ago, I share the sentiment and have always felt that a true sports car should be its own form of entertainment, with no distractions necessary. It’s the same reason I never take a good book along to read at a Rolling Stones concert, or install a sound system on my motorcycle.”
Peter continues, “I have a long history of owning hair-shirt, rather elemental sports cars whose styling I admire, but as I get older—and our summers here in the Midwest get hotter—I’m becoming less convinced that physical suffering has to be part of the sports car experience. So two of my favorite cars from the past 40 years have been a first-generation Porsche Boxster-S and a 1991 BRG Special Edition Miata (with Konis and shock tower braces). Both are totally engaging to drive, can be enjoyed on a winding road or track day, have leak-free convertible tops and yet possess this miraculous thing called air conditioning. Also, the radio doesn’t work on my Miata, and I’ve never once been tempted to fix it.”
Ha: I replaced my Miata’s stolen radio, confess to listening to the classical station, but never learned what all its other buttons are for.
We’ll continue this tomorrow in Part 2. Perhaps you’d like to share wisdom as well. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024
Simanaitis Says 
A melancholy has descended on me, reading the opinions of the many R&T staff that are no longer alive while I listen in the background to The Kingston Trio’s rendering of “A Season In the Sun.”
We are all of an age. I’ll be 76 on my next birthday and have enjoyed cars of various kinds of the last 54 years, from my current toy (a ’62 Morgan Plus 4 roadster nicknamed MOGGIE) to other great relics that I no longer own (an ’80 Triumph Spitfire I bought in ’83 and sold in 2006, a late 60’s Ford Cortina bought in ’70 and sold in ‘71, a 1075 Mini Cooper (that’s the displacement, not the year), an early 850 Mini and others, too, a Jaguar Saloon (Mk IX), two Mustang GT Convertibles, a few Acura Integras and so forth.
You might have noticed that the British Marque Car Club News (BMCCN) has announced that it will cease production in May 2025, 35 years after its founding. Sad. Paper is in deep trouble. Magazine racks are scarce and lean. Postal Costs continue to rise just as readership declines, a double whammy for all the pubs of old (Hemmings Classic and Sports disappeared about a decade ago.)
I remember chatting with BMCCN co-publisher, Bruce Vild, at a CCBCC event (Cape Cod British Car Club — now renamed the British Car Club of Cape Cod, BCCCC) 3 to 5 years ago about the softness in the British Car Club market. CCBCC no longer runs its gala end-of-year event. Bruce was upbeat, which is great. We need upbeat attitudes to hold the line on a sinking market for these cars and the clubs that engage their owners.
I am contemplating selling MOGGIE before the market disappears and spare parts (e.g., Wings) and services disappear. It’s not an economic decision. It’s about figuring out when to move on from these cars.
MOGGIE has give me a lot of great times (too many best of show awards, for example) spiced with a some down time as well, e.g., half a dozen overheating problems — finally fixed, 3 generator failures, two clutch overhauls, a sliding pillar rebuild along with an engine rebuild, new brakes all around, and so forth, in 11+ years of ownership, but that comes with the territory. MOGGIE is running well now and looks good (last restoration in 89) which tells me, it may be time to pass it on to someone else who can enjoy the next decade or two with the car.
How would you compare a Morgan +4 to a 2024 Mazda MX-5/Miata? I’m talking about comfort and space. Is it a lot easier to get into with the hood/top down? Up?
Keep up the good work, Dennis, you’re inspiring.
>
Thanks for your kind words, Tom. You’ve surely enjoyed your cars.
The only Miata I’ve driven is number 348, so cannot comment about a 2024. I recall my Morgan had more interior width (because of less interior stuff like windows and cranks). Both were circus acts with hoods erected. Easy-peasy with hoods where they belong. The Miata has a/c; the Morgan’s engine heat sneaked through the firewall.
To counter melancholy, subscribe to the Brit “Classic & Sports Car.” I’ve enjoyed “Octane” too.
““should be nimble, small; make me feel special; give a rakish exhilarated feeling; have a personality that agrees with mine.””
_THIS_ . far too many Americans forget this basic thing and expect a Sports Car to be a Race Car when it isn’t .
I’ve owned and loved (and cursed at a few times) more than my share of L.B.C.’s, Air Cooled Porches (only four cylinder models of course) .
My current ‘Sports Car’ is a battered but unbowed 1959 VW Beetle that’s seen better days, every inch (? MM ?) of it is rusty, dented or bent and the tiny 1192 C.C. engine has a slight rod knock upon cold startup in the morning, I crank it until the oil pressure gets up so when I touch the throttle it *instantly* comes to life without knocking, I drive it this way to Death Valley and other far away places, mostly flat footing the throttle so it’s not blocking traffic, not very fast (slightly over 70MPH if no wind) and I seem to pass more than a few other ‘Sports Cars’ in the twisty bits, it never fails to put a large smile on my face so yes, I think Sports Cars are indeed a thing and here to stay even if I did sell my MGB – GT FHC with fully rebuilt driveline because I like old VW’s better .
I’m sure you know that “MIATA” is an acronym ? :
Miata
Is
Always
The
Answer .
-Nate
Tom, you’re not alone. Many of us, but apparently not enough, miss the literate, oft funny car magazines of yore, even the recent yore. The few remaining are like glossy tool catalogs with aren’t we hip prose.
To think John and Elaine Bond launched Dennis’s longtime tech editor domicile, Road & Track, in 1947 using the New Yorker as their model; something for literate, educated autoholics, which it remained until corporate journalism squeezed out Dennis, Phil Frank and Joe Troise, Peter Egan in the aughts. The R&T remaining is slick and soulless.
Today, Tom, another trip around the sun has me only three years younger’n you, a date i share with Julius Caesar, Milton Berle, and Bill Cosby.
Nate, your opening quote says it all re: sport cars. After all these decades, i finally realized Carroll Shelby was right, correcting people who said sports car. He may’ve been a down-home Texan, but in this regard, he demonstrated sufficient understanding of the mother tongue.
Do i get extra credit for selling, in my callow youth, some of the cars y’all’ve owned: Fiat-Lancia, MG, Triumph, the first Mazda RX-7s? When uppity sorts pooh pooh that early avocation, I remind them Kurt Vonnegut sold Saabs.
And Nate, my gal couldn’t agree with your Miata tribute more. She adores her 102,000-mile, immaculate, silver, tan top ’01 Miata, “Belle.” Once my 5′ 15″ self and size 13 feet within, you never want to stop driving. Unfortunately, even big Healeys and XK-140s designed more for John Bull physiques than lanky Uncle Sams, regardless my largely Brit ancestry, and so an auld domestic inline 8 “road car,” as such called in the late ’30s, ’40s, must suffice.
But here’s to real sport cars and someone launching a domestic, unpretentious motoring mag for those of us who also read the New Yorker, have the ranging interests to celebrate a wonderful website like Dennis’s, and to realize democracy truly is at stake this November 5th if Oswald Cobblepot, aka Bratman, Orange Julius, regains the Oval Office.
ps. Here in the Bay Area, Dennis, we had the late, great 24-hour classical KKHI AM & FM. AM was at 1550 on the dial, and next-door at 1510, was the late KTIM, which curiously went off the air at 7pm but broadcast Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, Johnny Dodds and Kid Ory, Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven, Sid Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Wilbur & Sidney DeParis, but no big band schmaltz, maybe Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw, but never Glenn Miller, who Shaw said “made good Republican music. He never took chances.”
Now the Bay Area’s sole classical station is classic lite, snippets of Mozart interrupted by obnoxious Mercedes commercials. We understand LA’s down to but one classical station. At least my old greater NYC still has WQXR.
But while needing such music as much as ever, regardless what i’m driving, i share Peter Egan’s above indifference to his ’91 Miata’s defunct radio.
Rachmaninoff liked to drive fast cars, but so far unable to discover which. He emigrated to the US at the opening of the Twenties and stayed until his death in 1943, tho’ vacationing in France, Switzerland, performing in London and Europe.
Wikipedia offers only “He enjoyed some personal luxuries, including quality tailored suits and the latest models of cars.”
But of course, as cited above, sport cars are about more than sheer speed, certainly such as existed in the ’20s and ’30s.
Morgan, the firsts and the last of the “REAL” sports cars.
I’ve always had to have “practical” cars, so while I dreamed about XK-Es and MGs in my youth (and a few other impracticalities over time), my first car was an Opel station wagon. With a stick, added radials within the first year (bought the car used, with 3 brands represented in its 4 worn-out bias-ply tires), needed a tach (found one in a wrecked Manta and added it), and with barely functional a/c. With the Michelins and new shocks, it handled surprisingly well, and the fact that with the shoulder belt on I couldn’t reach the radio didn’t really matter. Another oddball was the Rabbit Diesel, slower than a turtle but handled so well (for its time) that it was fun to drive it Really Hard without anybody else noticing. Best combination I had was the FX16 Corolla: not the GTS, it had all the good parts without the flash, and was great fun on a back road (and had actually useful a/c). Everything had back seats, sometimes big enough for adults, and was a hatchback to it could handle real loads.
Of course none of those were “sports cars” properly so-called, but they were capable of being driven in such a way that the radio was unnecessary. Yes, I like that fundamental definition, related to your comment about cars that you don’t feel the need to smoke in.
Thanks again! These looks back at R&T and the people behind it are a great addition to my memories of the print era.
I bought a 2003 Morgan + 8 with only 300 miles. First thing I did was to remove the radio.
John
Mike B, for what it’s worth, friends with Ferrari ’59 Berlinetta, Pinanfarina coupe, and a ’63 Lusso both laughed that a ’90s or newer Honda Civic with a stick would outperform them or a big Healey (3000). The stick Civic faster, better handling, equal or better acceleration, better brakes, more comfortable, and more reliable. Better gas mileage, of course.
So you’re far from alone in your experience.
As with any vintage car, much of the sport car emprise is charm.