QOTD: What's Your Definition of a Supercar?

Last week I had the good fortune to spend a couple of days with Andrew Comrie-Picard, wheeling some gnarly Jeeps and riding along in psychotic 600-horsepower rallycross cars at a GRC event in Seattle. The Jeeps growled like Chewbacca on a bad fur day, while the rallycross cars felt like a freight train speeding up my spine and coming out my ear.

As with all good conversations, the topic frequently centered on cars. On the way to drive Jeeps, ACP posed a great question: What’s your definition of a supercar?

It was a great inquiry, yet one I could readily answer. In my mind, in order for a car to qualify as a true supercar, it needs to appeal to my inner nine-year-old. Let me try to explain.

The Pagani Zonda is an absolute riot of a car, a caricature of what a supercar would look like if a group of designers were given free reign with their imagination and several strong hallucinogens. Various AMG engines plugged into its fantastically ridiculous bodywork over the years. Its interior is something out of a spaceship, filled with chrome pods and retro-futuristic dials. Even its shifter is a work of art. Add in a dose of eye-watering performance and, to my jaundiced eye, the Zonda is a supercar.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I submit Pagani’s follow-up, the Huayra. I have infinite respect for the Huayra – for its performance creds, for its feats of engineering, for its startling capabilities – but it doesn’t make me all tingly when I look at it. I applaud any person who buys one, along with the teams who designed and built it, but supercar? To this jaundiced eye? Hmm.

This is also the same point of view that leads me to choose a Huracan over an R8. It’s pantomime vs purity of purpose. How about you? What’s your definition of a supercar? Is it quantifiable with numbers and statistics? Or is it something less easy to define?

[Image: Pagani Automobili SPA]