September 8, 2025 • 32 mins
Can a sports car really be family-friendly? Explore how automotive designers have been tackling this paradox since the 1950s, blending the thrill of sports car performance with the practicality needed for family life. Join us as we navigate the engaging ride through the ever-evolving world of family-friendly sports cars, where style meets practicality without compromise.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My whole life I've looked for one, and well
hell, most of us wanted one from the ripe old
age of about four years old.
Most guys and girls that get into cars
dream of getting their very first sports
car, their first car ever.
They plan for it to be a sports car, but
then, as we all know it, life gets in the
(00:21):
way.
Some of us choose to go after it and some
of us choose to just let life go its way.
Well, for the rest of us in the world that
choose for life to go that way, the
aftermarket industry opens up an entire
market of possibilities for us to turn
everyday automobiles into that cool sports
car we once had.
But and yet it's still not that sports car.
(00:42):
And now, with a family, we need something
to get the family around.
Well, this is an idea that's been plaguing
automobile designers and companies since
all the way back in the 1950s.
How do we get families into sports cars?
If we can manage to get families into
sports cars, we can grow that market
exponentially.
But first you've got to take a look at what
already exists to help you create what you
(01:05):
need.
So today AutoLooks is taking a look at
family-friendly sports cars.
Welcome back to the AutoLooks Podcast.
I am your host, as always, the doctor to
the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay,
coming to you from our host website at
(01:25):
AutoLooks.net.
If you haven't been there, stop by, check
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Read some of the reviews, check out some of
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Just click that and go through.
(01:46):
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(02:08):
at the bottom that tells you hey, there's a
newsletter.
At some point in time we're going to get
back to you.
You can think about it, or, hell, you can
just send us a funny message and say this
just sucks.
Okay, get your head out of your ass and
keep cruising right.
No, no, if you want to, you can do that.
The whole world's full of it People who
want to give their opinions about every
single thing out there and, like I said in
(02:28):
the beginning, a family-friendly vehicle is
along those lines.
People make fun of car companies for doing
this.
The greatest example in the generation
we're in now would be the Ford Mustang
Mach-E.
Now we did a podcast about the evolution of
the Mustang when the Mustang Mach-E finally
hit the market.
There's a reason behind it and a reason why
(02:48):
it's there.
Sure, a lot of us don't agree with the name,
but you have to remember there were a lot
of people out there who didn't agree with
the Porsche, cayenne or even Ferrari.
Creating the Purisang.
Family-friendly vehicles have been a tried
possibility for decades.
Tons of car companies have played around
with the ideas and, like we talked about in
the intro, dating all the way back to the
(03:09):
1950s.
If you want to see something really amazing
that I found out, you know, while I was
doing the podcast for the shooting brakes,
the cover car is actually concept.
We all know about the Chevrolet Nomad.
Okay, the Chevy Nomad was a cool shooting
brake, two-door wagon.
You know that's shooting brakes back in the
original days.
The Australian market has kept them alive
(03:29):
with.
You know the Holden Sandman Kind of cool.
And when you think about it it's even
cooler if you're playing Metallica as
you're driving down the road, driving in
your Sandman, listening to Enter Sandman.
You know, just great days, right.
And most of the people that buy one of
those things they're probably rocking some
Metallica or, in my case, megadeth.
You just got to keep it real.
(03:55):
But those shooting brakes they're kind of
amazing vehicles.
And the Nomad if you didn't know this, our
cover art for that podcast is based off the
original concept because the Nomad was
originally supposed to be a family-friendly
version of the Corvette.
Yeah, chevrolet in the 50s thought about
the great success of the Corvette and how
everyone wanted to get them.
This is an American version of the
roadsters that all the veterans who came
back from World War II had seen on the
(04:16):
other side of the ocean, that they brought
home, that they wanted back home, but they
wanted an American, powerful one and they
got the Corvette.
Chevrolet answered them and gave them the
Corvette.
Well, the Nomad was Chevrolet's attempt to
give us a Corvette for your family, because
you got to remember.
We're all moving to the suburbs.
There's only one parent that's working and
(04:37):
you know the one parent that's working also
wants to blow off some steam.
They want to have something cool and they
want to have something fun.
But if you've got a Corvette in the garage,
unless you can really afford a multitude of
vehicles in this case, a lot of families
are getting into either one or two vehicles.
That third vehicle was still kind of
sitting out of your area, so the Corvette
was selling but wasn't selling to the young
(04:59):
people who really wanted it.
Ford in the 60s finally answered that with
the Mustang, giving us four seats in a
sports car.
Well, four seats in a sports car have been
around for decades.
Grand Touring models.
You know you get your GT Roadsters and your
GTs.
We all get it GTS products.
Grand Touring sports products are usually
only two-seater vehicles.
(05:21):
But a Grand Tourer product is usually built
for more creature comforts with that power.
You're talking about 612 skeletti from
ferrari.
It's a grand touring product.
It's made for creature comforts.
We talked about that in ferrari's grand
touring products a multitude of different
ones that they've created and how that's
all led up to the new ferrari piercing.
(05:42):
Now we all want that family-friendly
vehicle.
How many of us have had friends and you
know they get married and they gotta sell.
You know, going back to some people, I knew
this one guy.
He got married and then she gets pregnant
and he's like, oh, we need something safer
for our child to move around in.
And he's like, okay, I'll go out and get a
vehicle.
(06:02):
He can't find anything within reason.
And then it comes to it where he's got his
cell, his 93 nissan 300zxt top and he's got
the turbo model.
He does not want to part with the car he
has loved and owned for nearly a decade but
he has to, the only way he can get a
family-friendly vehicle to get the kid
around.
And because you know, trust me, I've seen
(06:23):
somebody put a car seat in the back of a
300 zx.
It's actually quite comical to even just
see it in the back of one of those vehicles.
It will fit.
I I'm assuming watching that person put
their kid into the back of the 300 zx in a
parking lot would be even funnier to see.
Almost as funny as like when my wife and I
used to go to the theaters on tuesday on
movie cheap nights and we used to get there
(06:45):
early because we leave work.
We go to costco pick up a hot dog, you know
nice little cheaper night and then we go to
the movies and we'd sit in the parking lot
we watch people park.
I literally watched this one person in a
minivan back into the handicap sign like
that post sitting in the cement three times
on top of they also hit or ran over the
(07:05):
curb another four times, like it's just
funny to watch.
So I'm sitting there thinking like this
little kid in the back of 300ZX in a child
seat.
They got in there, but I want to know how
they got in there.
So you got to sell it.
You got to lose your family-friendly
vehicle and because of that you're losing
it.
We got the corvette nomad, the corvair and
the original pala concepts.
(07:26):
All showcased a family-friendly, sports
inspired vehicle.
But that wasn't enough.
Well, along comes the 60s and a gray man by
the name of john zachary delorean takes a
pontiac tempest, jams a big block v8
underneath the hood and gives birth to the
muscle car era with the GTO.
(07:46):
Yes, now, if you want to research this, go
back, check it out.
The GTO actually came out and hit the
market before the Ford Mustang, because
essentially the Ford Mustang gave birth to
the pony car era, where the GTO was muscle
cars, because muscle cars is a lot of power
in a regular car.
By doing that they put a ton of power in
and kids loved it.
(08:07):
I can now take my mom's car out all this
power, and go drag racing.
Sure, sports cars are great, but it's only
two seats.
I want to go out and I want to drag race.
I want to bring my girlfriend and my best
bud, because you know we're going out
partying but we're going to race there.
We got balls deep power in this bad boy.
Muscle cars kind of gave us our new entry
(08:28):
into somewhat of a family-friendly sports
car.
But the funniest thing is, while we were
doing this, the concept world was also
giving us something else.
They were giving us four-door mustangs,
they were giving us four-door corvettes.
They were showing us maybe the sports car
industry can still have that
family-friendly luster that we all want,
because we want fun car.
(08:50):
And I'm going to quote one of my favorite
TV shows here, and Otto, when he asked for
the money from Grandpa Simpson.
You know, I want to soup up the bus and I
want to jam those kids to school at two of
the miles an hour man.
Here's an artist's rendition.
Notice the naked chick with the snake on
the front.
Yeah, otto wanted that.
And every time I think about it and see
really cool ideas like that out there, it's
(09:11):
amazing the aftermarket industry is full of
it.
The concept of the SRT Hellcat-powered
Chrysler Pacifica is something I would want.
Not jam my kids to school on, that damn
thing, I don't really care.
Hell, I'd use a Durango RT.
Lots of power.
It's more of a family-friendly power
vehicle, but it's not a family-friendly
sports car.
And car companies still hadn't got that.
(09:33):
In the 70s we started getting muscle
car-infused station wagons.
Oh yeah, we had the Chevelle wagon, we had
the Torino wagon, we had station wagon with
the same big block engine.
We were jamming underneath the hood of
these muscle cars.
So isn't that a family friendly sports car?
No, that's the same thing as when the dodge
charger came back and they put a hemi
(09:54):
underneath the hood of it.
Well, it's a family friendly sports car.
Not not necessarily, because one.
The hemi edition usually came with the rt
or the srt, so it's an aftermarket
variation of the vehicle.
So it's not a dedicated sports car.
It's originally built to be a standard
sedan.
We're just beefing it up the muscle cars
like the chevelle ss wagon was essentially
(10:15):
just a muscle car with more space in it, it
still ran on the muscle car field and even
though we had seen four-door Mustang
concepts hell, even Corvettes or even
Corvette shooting brakes, we still didn't
have one.
Now the shooting brake is one of the few
ways we managed to get a family-friendly
sports car by the 1970s Companies doing
(10:36):
conversions or even selling variations of
coach-built ones right from the factory,
like Jaguar and even Corvette did Hell.
There's even a Trans Am station station
wagon, but they're not factory produced.
It's something that's still manufactured
outside of the realms of the standard
product.
Those jaguar xj's you see as shooting
(10:57):
brakes, those didn't come off the
production line.
Those are built afterwards.
And yet again, we're still not getting our
family-friendly sports cars.
We're getting a market that's trying to
build interest for it.
We're getting people highly interested in
it because of the added cost of buying the
vehicle and then building this on top of it.
It's still out of the hands of your average
(11:19):
consumer and your average consumer is the
number one person who wants that
family-friendly sports car.
Any rich person out there can get that
supercar and then roll up in a Rolls Royce.
It's got supercar power underneath the hood
of it, but it doesn't roll that way.
No, it's just a cruiser.
It's one of those fun vehicles.
If you're going to drop it like it's hot,
(11:40):
you want to do it in a Range Rover, rolls
Royce, bentley Still not your
family-friendly sports car we're looking
for.
Now, with the rise of the shooting brake
industry blending into the sports car arena,
we started getting more interest.
People were seeing these things in
magazines and they wanted them, but they
wanted them again at the entry-level prices.
(12:03):
Companies started figuring this out and
they realized they can command a higher
degree price range for these
family-friendly sports cars and if you're
building them off of standard products, you
can yield a better income from it.
By the 1980s a bunch of companies started
figuring this out to meet new CAF agreement
rules.
The Ford Mustang, for the first time in
history, came with a four-cylinder engine.
(12:25):
They needed to meet these new regulations
and they wanted to make it a fuel-efficient
muscle car.
Now the four-cylinder doesn't fall into the
muscle car arena, but it still has the
image of that muscle car, and with four
seats, a four-cylinder engine and a
budget-friendly entry price oh, isn't this
family friendly sports car?
It kind of is building on the momentum of
(12:45):
the marketplace that we wanted, but it's
not giving us what we need, because for a
dedicated, family-friendly sports car, we
need four doors.
Ferrari started playing around with the
idea of a four-door sedan and even though
the product was great it was almost almost
production ready they decided to pull the
plug on it because the last minute they
(13:06):
realized that this vehicle could
essentially destroy the image of Ferrari.
Porsche was playing around with the idea as
well, stretching out a 959 to make a sedan
variation of it.
Both companies were sports cars, purebred
sports car manufacturers, and they were
considering building a high-volume vehicle
to get rich families to the golf course.
(13:27):
This wasn't about mom or dad hopping in the
Ferrari with their golf clubs or, you know,
skates or whatever else.
You're going to do Yoga mat.
You know the hot mom in the Ferrari with
the yoga mat.
I'm going to leave that image there,
driving out to what they were going to do,
you know, and then coming home.
No, this is family friendly.
These are a bunch of rich people that want
to hop in their Ferrari, they want to drive
(13:48):
all the way to Six Flags and they want to
go ride roller coasters all day.
They want to get their food and they want
to come home.
These are the same people that want to go
to a high event gala.
They want to roll a crack at destroying
their image.
Ferrari especially, because they
(14:08):
essentially built that empire on sports
cars With the help of the Formula One team.
That's what people wanted to know them for.
Porsche was a little bit different on the
other side, but in the late 70s,
lamborghini was going after a military
contract to try and keep the company alive.
They decided to use their engineering from
the tractor division to help build the
(14:30):
LMP-001, which is going to become a new
vehicle for the Italian military.
It's going to be the fastest accelerating
pickup truck in the desert scene ever.
It's going to be great and it's going to be
a Lamborghini.
Now, lamborghini didn't do it to chase
volumes.
No, they did it for a military contract.
Now, when that military contract was
awarded to Fiat, they literally threw their
hands up in the air and said Fuck, what are
(14:51):
we going to do now?
We spent all this money on this.
Oh shit, man.
If we turn around and sold it to the
average consumer or, well, wealthy consumer,
how many would we have to build to make our
money back and possibly make a profit off
of it.
So they crunched the numbers and realized
they could.
The LM001 was essentially the first foray
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into a family-friendly sports car.
Now, it wasn't for everyone.
There were very limited production volumes.
It was only for high-end clienteles.
They ran into a lot of issues with these
things, and even the box on it was really
non-existent.
It was small and barely used for anything.
But the people that were buying it were
(15:34):
buying it so them and their friends and
family could get out to the cottage, drive
through the sand dunes.
Rich sheiks were piling their friends into
the vehicles and going blaring through the
back sand dunes.
This was all fun, the fun for the family,
and lamborghini got us in there.
Well, now it's the late 90s, and the 90s is
kind of a crazy time.
We're going through a major transition.
We're getting better fuel economy, we're
starting to look at new power sources.
(15:56):
We're going through a full design change
where we, you know, don't have to be
subjected to either round or square
headlights.
All those standards are now blown out the
window.
We can create whatever bubble designs,
bubble headlights, all new technology.
Computers are starting to take off.
We can do anything.
And then Dodge says hey, remember the
Charger, that amazing muscle car from back
in the day.
Let's add two more doors to it and let's
(16:18):
bring it out to the public.
The original concept was essentially a
family-friendly sports car.
Its design looked like today's
coupe-profile sedans.
We had the CLS, which essentially helped
pioneer the coupe-profile sedan market,
with the Volkswagen Passat CC coming in
behind it.
For your average consumer, the Dodge
(16:38):
Charger was paving the way for this.
Now, when the model finally hit the
marketplace, utilizing the Dodge Hemi-C
concept a really weird ass looking thing
you couldn't see anything from that.
That kind of made it into it, except for
its profile.
When the Charger came out, we didn't see it
as a muscle car, we saw it as a sedan.
But as Dodge started putting more and more
(16:59):
power into it, putting more emphasis on the
amount of power in it, we started to see it
as a family-friendly muscle car.
Sorry to say, dodge kind of lost the boat
on that one.
They went after the muscle car era yet
again with a four-door product.
A couple years down the road, Lamborghini
has been taken over by Volkswagen and Lotus
is with Proton.
Both companies are looking for a new way to
(17:21):
make more money and after seeing the
success of the Porsche Cayenne and Porsche
having the idea of building a sedan.
Now the Panamera, Lamborghini plays around
with the idea of the Evoque.
Lotus gives us a sedan.
Now only one of those two companies today
actually built that sedan years later.
But they thought about it.
(17:42):
They said to themselves porsche creating a
CUV for its production line massively
changed the run, how they were about to buy
out Volkswagen before the market took a
tumble and essentially that wheels turned
and Volkswagen bought them out completely.
But the cayenne was showcasing to us you
can add all the sports car features into a
CUV.
(18:02):
And they're about to do it again with the
Panamera Add all the sports car features
into a four-door sedan.
They were building family-friendly sports
cars.
A Porsche Cayenne is essentially one of the
very first family-friendly sports cars and,
with its price being a lot lower than the
LM001, its versatility being way off the
scale compared to the original Lamborghini,
(18:24):
and the fact that its price point put it in
line with more entry-level, high-end
earners and not just million and
billionaires, it was more in line with the
markets.
Cadillac helped show the marketplace that
these big, burly SUVs and SUVs could be
done when they created the Cadillac
Escalade, the first generation off the
(18:46):
original GMC Yukon Denali.
But for Porsche to give us the Cayenne and
then release the Panamera.
They were showcasing to us that a sports
car company can change itself.
They could still sell their high-end
product the 911s, the 911 turbos, the 918s,
the Boxster's, the Caymans but still appeal
(19:07):
to those same families when mom or dad hops
in the 911 to go back and forth to work on
the weekends, they hop in the Cayenne and
Panamera to go skiing, to go to the cottage,
to go on a road trip somewhere.
These were built for families in mind, but
yet again, trip somewhere.
These were built for families and mine.
But yet again it's still just a standard
sedan and a standard CUV.
Not too long after this, Ferrari saw that
(19:29):
there was a marketplace for somewhat of an
enhanced Grand Touring product, they looked
at their Grand Touring lineup and said can
we do more?
And, not wanting to saturate their brand
image like Porsche did, they decided to
create the Ferrari FF, essentially a
Ferrari for the family market, a lot more
(19:51):
easily accessible to get into the back
seats than the standard GD products and
with the shooting brake design you could
store more product in there as well.
You can, or people can, comfortably go on a
weekend ski trip in it.
This wasn't your standard grand touring
product.
This was more.
This was suited to the family person.
Now wasn't suited people with really small
(20:11):
kid.
The cayenne was there, the Panamera was
there, Ferrari hadn't gone.
Essentially, the FF is what the corvette
created back in the 70s.
The aerovent, like we said, is one of the
most civilized versions of a grand touring
product for the people.
But it's still not enough.
We need more.
Kick the can a little further down the road.
Here we are coming into the teen years of
(20:33):
the 2000s.
The electric industry is starting to gain
traction.
Ford sees something new.
They're not the first company to make
notice of this.
The original Nissan Murano that came out in
the early 2000s was essentially a
sport-infused crossover utility market.
It wasn't just a standard CUV which kind of
took the profile of a standard SUV.
(20:55):
No, this had a flowing design that embodied
more performance to it, kind of like the
Infiniti, fx35s and 45s.
They made it seem like a high-riding sports
car more than a standard CUV.
But at that point in time we just called
them CUVs, because that's all we saw.
Anything that was lifted above the ground
was a CUV.
(21:15):
Anything close to the ground was a station
wagon.
Well, by the teen years, late teen years,
we could could say a new marketplace was
starting to take shape.
Coupe profiles of cuvs were starting to
come out.
We were starting to give people more of
that coupe style for vehicles.
BMW gave us the X6, Mercedes gave us the
CLS coupes when everybody was going after
(21:36):
this.
But these, these were just, you know,
standard cuvs with a trunk.
It's a coupe, it's utilizing a coupe
profile, it's not utilizing a sports car
profile.
We need something that looks like a sports
car to give us that full family-friendly
experience and we have to make it available
to the masses.
Well, ford became the company to crack that
code, similar to henry ford cracking the
(21:58):
original code to bring vehicles to the
entire masses of the world.
Ford cracked it and created with the
earliest active lifestyle vehicles you can
find, with the mustang Mach-e.
Yeah, it's a four-door version of the ford
mustang, but it's not a sedan, it's not a
SUV, it's not a crossover,
So what is it?
(22:19):
It's an active lifestyle vehicle.
So for my generation you know they call me
the millennial, but I'm kind of like that
what is that mid-tier generation that runs
between 1977 and 1983?
Yeah, I'm right, in there we're the people
that want to go out.
You know we tend to do more yoga, go to
exercising, go hiking.
(22:39):
We're the people that have active
lifestyles.
The cross-track and trekking market really
brought us into this adventurous style.
But now we have a family and we want to get
around town.
We still want that old drive ability to go
on dirt roads, but we want to look like
we're going fast as we're sitting on the
road.
We can't afford to get a Mustang because we
can't afford that third vehicle, but we
(23:05):
want to have something that's fun and looks
great.
The market finally answered us with the
arrival of the Mustang.
Mach-e Gave birth to the first full-bred,
family-friendly sports car to hit the
market.
It showed us something that we can all get
Hell.
Myself, I can afford to get one.
My father can afford to get one.
My aunt that runs a million-dollar
corporation can afford to get one.
My father can afford to get one.
My aunt that runs a million dollar
corporation can afford to get one.
We all can get it.
So the sports car market is just within our
grasps.
You know they had sport infused vehicles.
(23:27):
For years I owned a CX-9 first generation
and, trust me, that thing really took its
motto to heart.
Mazda back in the day used to use that
motto Zoom, zoom.
You know they had that kid that used to
come on right after the car went by and
went Zoom, zoom.
Yeah, that one.
My CX-9, first generation.
That thing was crazy.
I used to go off off-ramps and I could
still hit between 80 and 90 kilometers an
(23:49):
hour.
Taking an off-ramp.
I'd drive my truck and my beast of a Borrego.
After that, a lot more power in the CX-9, I
felt like it was tipping at 60.
And this thing was doing it at like 80.
It felt like a sports car.
It handled similar to a sports car but it
fit my family.
I wouldn't call it a family-friendly sports
car.
It was a sport-infused crossover utility
vehicle.
But an active lifestyle vehicle is
(24:11):
dedicated for that sports car-interested
family person.
The Lamborghini Urus does that.
The new Ferrari Purosangue does that.
They all give us this inspiration that we
could take our families for a fun night out.
You know I'm going to use a context from
you know way back, so don't get pissed at
me for saying this.
(24:32):
But you know dad just wants to take the
family out to get some ice cream, but he
doesn't want to have to worry about kids
getting ice cream all over his 70 mustangs
interior.
Now he's gonna throw them in the Mach-e.
We're gonna look cool, we do it.
We're gonna drive fast.
We're gonna have fun, we're driving
something.
With the name.
It may hurt the image of the vehicle, but
since the mustang name is so strong and
it's been born into a new age with both its
(24:53):
design, its power and its history having
the four cylinder in that, it showed us
that a sports car can be more.
General motors is now looking at this and
they're thinking of bringing back the
camaro as a brand new crossover utility
vehicle, more of an active lifestyle
vehicle, to compete in this brand new
family-friendly sports car market.
You know the luxury market end has had
(25:15):
these vehicles for a few decades, but entry
level customers are just starting to get
them.
Hell, the blazer returning onto a
marketplace like that is trying to go after
that appearance but in all reality we all
know it's just a crossover utility vehicle
using the name of a fully bred off-road
truck.
Okay, yeah, the blazer, that was utility,
(25:36):
not civil life.
So the sports car appeal is coming out
Creating a Corvette or Camaro sub-brand,
utilizing the Charger name for both a two
and four-door model now, and having
vehicles like the SRT8 Durango's out there.
The family-friendly sports car market is
starting to take off.
With the drop in sales in the sports car
(25:56):
market, with people reverting back to two
car households, these car companies have to
figure something out to get people to buy
sports cars.
What's the best way to do it?
And let the family man have what he really
wants.
You know, I know tons of people that you
know they're always pushed into buying
minivans.
Or you know the big Suburbans oh, we need
something for the family and we need it to
(26:18):
be safe and, you know, have all kinds of
good features and easily accessible in the
back of your head.
Just going, shut the fuck up, I just want
to drive fast.
Plus, I gotta drive this beast of a thing.
I don't look like a freaking, you know
weird ass tool who's basically whipped by
my spouse.
Now I want to look like I'm cool and have
fun.
I'll be rolling up with this gum between my
(26:38):
fingers.
Go, oh yeah, that's right, this is mine,
this is mine.
Oh yeah, I don't be rolling up the minivan
all crouched up forward because I'm not
allowed to adjust the seat.
Like Adam Sandler in that one movie, I just
got to see the perfect position.
Sure you're not uncomfortable.
No, no, I'm good it.
And, as I like to say, when I get into my wife's
RAV with her seat way forward, I'm like I
(26:59):
always take the steering wheel and I look
at my kids and go and I roll the seat back
and I go.
If you watch the Simpsons, you know exactly
what line I'm doing.
Okay, yeah, yeah, you know which one.
And it's funny because it's true.
It's true because we're so lame.
Yeah, it's so true, but in all reality,
that's what we want.
(27:20):
We want these family-friendly sports cars.
Porsche is the first company to do that for
us and now they're trying to electrify all
of them.
Lotus is replicating the success of Porsche
with their brand new electric SUV and sedan
Lamborghini.
They get the US.
They're not considering expanding upon that,
but they still have it.
Ferrari's finally given us the Purosangue.
(27:41):
Mclaren and Koenigsegg are kind of sitting
back.
Koenigsegg doesn't want to get into this,
but they did create the Gemera, A gull-wing
sedan.
In a sense, it's the same idea as the
DeLorean Alpha 5 that's coming out
Essentially a four-seat sports car.
Yeah, essentially a four-seat sports car.
Yeah, they're here.
They're only for the rich, but we finally
have that family-friendly sedan that looks
(28:01):
exactly like a sports car, we got the
Camaro and the DeLorean Alpha 5.
And because it's only one solid door that
opens up to expose two seats on either side,
it essentially falls into the same lines as
the sports car industry.
So, yeah, it's here here.
Will it diminish the appeal of other
people's cars?
Will it kill the two-door model arena?
(28:23):
Or we just managed to find a way to crack
the actual sports car marketplace?
Are gullwing doors the answer?
Because we all know that for conventional
doors, I mean, it's just a sedan, but two
gullwing doors sized well enough to expose
two seats on the other side, that's
something completely different.
So for today's marketplace, the
(28:43):
family-friendly sports car has arrived.
Active lifestyle vehicles are where they're
at, and anything else and over and above
that, it's just pure fun.
So my friend that had to sell his 300ZX to
get that stupid.
He didn't buy a minivan, but he got a
stupid, freaking, crappy suv.
You know he's a ford guy, so probably an
explorer in today's market.
Yeah, he can get rid of his 300zx, but he
(29:04):
can go out and get himself a Mach-e.
It's cool, it's fun, it's great.
The family-friendly sports car it's here.
It looks like it's going to be sticking
around for a while.
So if you like this podcast, we'd like
share a comment about it on any of the
major social feeds or streaming sites that
you've found the AutoLooks podcast on.
Like us, comment about us, share us, you
know.
Send us a comment about what you think is a
(29:25):
cool, what you would consider
family-friendly sports car.
Do you agree with some of the ones that we
talked about in this?
Are you like myself?
I still don't consider the Mustang Mach-E a
true Mustang.
It's the purebred Mustang name.
Now it's got to be a big, burly, two-door
V8 pony car.
But in a sense I'm also a family man.
(29:45):
So I buy a Mustang Mach-E just so I can say
I got a Mustang that I jam my kids to
school in.
You know, it does have that coolness ring
to it, as opposed to pulling up an
SRT-8-powered Pacifica.
People are like, oh, you got a Pacifica,
yeah, Pacifica.
People are like, oh, you got a Pacifica,
yeah, but it's got a big block V8
underneath the hood.
I'm pumping out 600 horsepower in this bad
boy.
Eh, it's still a Pacifica.
When you roll up in the Mustang, you're
like, ooh, a Mustang.
(30:05):
Yeah, it's an electric Mustang, it's still
got four doors, but it's a Mustang.
Ooh, get my drift.
That's why the family-friendly sports cars
have finally come out, that we finally
passed the generational gap where vehicles
like this are socially acceptable and can
be socially acceptable as those names, even
if you know I've done podcasts about it
(30:26):
where they essentially just stripped the
soul out of the original vehicle and put it
into a different one.
You're Ursula and you took Ariel's soul.
You're using a part number one.
No, no, not really, it's just reutilization
of the name.
Dodge started it with the Charger.
Like I said, go back, check out the website.
Go to AutoLooks.net, read some of the reviews,
check out some of the ratings.
Go to the Corporate Links website page.
(30:46):
Big or small, we have them all available on
the AutoLooks.net website, on the Corporate
Links tab at the top of the page, and if
you click the podcast one, you can bring up
this podcast and see the cars that we have
talked about.
I know we don't have, you know, full scale
YouTube video where you can see all these
things flipping in the back.
But you know what?
Sometimes you got to do a little bit
digging.
(31:06):
Sometimes you got to use your fingers and
your mind and bypass artificial
intelligence and do the work yourself to
find some of these things.
Trust me, it's a lot more fun.
If you have trouble, you have trouble.
Send us an email.
Tell us how much it sucks, how much I
should go shove it, whatever else, I don't
really give a crap.
Send it Like it, comment about it, post it,
do what you want.
You're your own person, you got your own
opinions and we're all for that.
(31:32):
The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you
with us.
Send us an email over at email@
AutoLooks.net.
So for myself, Everett Jay, the host and
owner both the AutoLooks website and the
AutoLooks Podcast, and is a general manager
of Ecomm Entertainment Group, strap yourself
in for this one fun wild ride these brand
new sports cars are going to take us on.
(31:55):
Thank you.
My whole life I've looked for one, and well
hell, most of us wanted one from the ripe old
age of about four years old.
Most guys and girls that get into cars
dream of getting their very first sports
car, their first car ever.
They plan for it to be a sports car, but
then, as we all know it, life gets in the
(00:21):
way.
Some of us choose to go after it and some
of us choose to just let life go its way.
Well, for the rest of us in the world that
choose for life to go that way, the
aftermarket industry opens up an entire
market of possibilities for us to turn
everyday automobiles into that cool sports
car we once had.
But and yet it's still not that sports car.
(00:42):
And now, with a family, we need something
to get the family around.
Well, this is an idea that's been plaguing
automobile designers and companies since
all the way back in the 1950s.
How do we get families into sports cars?
If we can manage to get families into
sports cars, we can grow that market
exponentially.
But first you've got to take a look at what
already exists to help you create what you
(01:05):
need.
So today AutoLooks is taking a look at
family-friendly sports cars.
Welcome back to the AutoLooks Podcast.
I am your host, as always, the doctor to
the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay,
coming to you from our host website at
(01:25):
AutoLooks.net.
If you haven't been there, stop by, check
it out.
Read some of the reviews, check out some of
the ratings.
Go to the Corporate Links website page.
Big or small, we have them all car
companies from around the globe all
available in one direct location and that
is the AutoLooks website, the Corporate
Links page at the top of the main website.
Just click that and go through.
(01:46):
See all the different car companies you can
find from all the different countries where
car companies have existed and to this day
still exist, all brought to you by our host
website.
The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by
Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by
Podbean.com.
If you'd like to get in touch with us, send
us an email over at email@autolooks.net.
And if you're really feeling up to it, stop
by the website and click on the little tab
(02:08):
at the bottom that tells you hey, there's a
newsletter.
At some point in time we're going to get
back to you.
You can think about it, or, hell, you can
just send us a funny message and say this
just sucks.
Okay, get your head out of your ass and
keep cruising right.
No, no, if you want to, you can do that.
The whole world's full of it People who
want to give their opinions about every
single thing out there and, like I said in
(02:28):
the beginning, a family-friendly vehicle is
along those lines.
People make fun of car companies for doing
this.
The greatest example in the generation
we're in now would be the Ford Mustang
Mach-E.
Now we did a podcast about the evolution of
the Mustang when the Mustang Mach-E finally
hit the market.
There's a reason behind it and a reason why
(02:48):
it's there.
Sure, a lot of us don't agree with the name,
but you have to remember there were a lot
of people out there who didn't agree with
the Porsche, cayenne or even Ferrari.
Creating the Purisang.
Family-friendly vehicles have been a tried
possibility for decades.
Tons of car companies have played around
with the ideas and, like we talked about in
the intro, dating all the way back to the
(03:09):
1950s.
If you want to see something really amazing
that I found out, you know, while I was
doing the podcast for the shooting brakes,
the cover car is actually concept.
We all know about the Chevrolet Nomad.
Okay, the Chevy Nomad was a cool shooting
brake, two-door wagon.
You know that's shooting brakes back in the
original days.
The Australian market has kept them alive
(03:29):
with.
You know the Holden Sandman Kind of cool.
And when you think about it it's even
cooler if you're playing Metallica as
you're driving down the road, driving in
your Sandman, listening to Enter Sandman.
You know, just great days, right.
And most of the people that buy one of
those things they're probably rocking some
Metallica or, in my case, megadeth.
You just got to keep it real.
(03:55):
But those shooting brakes they're kind of
amazing vehicles.
And the Nomad if you didn't know this, our
cover art for that podcast is based off the
original concept because the Nomad was
originally supposed to be a family-friendly
version of the Corvette.
Yeah, chevrolet in the 50s thought about
the great success of the Corvette and how
everyone wanted to get them.
This is an American version of the
roadsters that all the veterans who came
back from World War II had seen on the
(04:16):
other side of the ocean, that they brought
home, that they wanted back home, but they
wanted an American, powerful one and they
got the Corvette.
Chevrolet answered them and gave them the
Corvette.
Well, the Nomad was Chevrolet's attempt to
give us a Corvette for your family, because
you got to remember.
We're all moving to the suburbs.
There's only one parent that's working and
(04:37):
you know the one parent that's working also
wants to blow off some steam.
They want to have something cool and they
want to have something fun.
But if you've got a Corvette in the garage,
unless you can really afford a multitude of
vehicles in this case, a lot of families
are getting into either one or two vehicles.
That third vehicle was still kind of
sitting out of your area, so the Corvette
was selling but wasn't selling to the young
(04:59):
people who really wanted it.
Ford in the 60s finally answered that with
the Mustang, giving us four seats in a
sports car.
Well, four seats in a sports car have been
around for decades.
Grand Touring models.
You know you get your GT Roadsters and your
GTs.
We all get it GTS products.
Grand Touring sports products are usually
only two-seater vehicles.
(05:21):
But a Grand Tourer product is usually built
for more creature comforts with that power.
You're talking about 612 skeletti from
ferrari.
It's a grand touring product.
It's made for creature comforts.
We talked about that in ferrari's grand
touring products a multitude of different
ones that they've created and how that's
all led up to the new ferrari piercing.
(05:42):
Now we all want that family-friendly
vehicle.
How many of us have had friends and you
know they get married and they gotta sell.
You know, going back to some people, I knew
this one guy.
He got married and then she gets pregnant
and he's like, oh, we need something safer
for our child to move around in.
And he's like, okay, I'll go out and get a
vehicle.
(06:02):
He can't find anything within reason.
And then it comes to it where he's got his
cell, his 93 nissan 300zxt top and he's got
the turbo model.
He does not want to part with the car he
has loved and owned for nearly a decade but
he has to, the only way he can get a
family-friendly vehicle to get the kid
around.
And because you know, trust me, I've seen
(06:23):
somebody put a car seat in the back of a
300 zx.
It's actually quite comical to even just
see it in the back of one of those vehicles.
It will fit.
I I'm assuming watching that person put
their kid into the back of the 300 zx in a
parking lot would be even funnier to see.
Almost as funny as like when my wife and I
used to go to the theaters on tuesday on
movie cheap nights and we used to get there
(06:45):
early because we leave work.
We go to costco pick up a hot dog, you know
nice little cheaper night and then we go to
the movies and we'd sit in the parking lot
we watch people park.
I literally watched this one person in a
minivan back into the handicap sign like
that post sitting in the cement three times
on top of they also hit or ran over the
(07:05):
curb another four times, like it's just
funny to watch.
So I'm sitting there thinking like this
little kid in the back of 300ZX in a child
seat.
They got in there, but I want to know how
they got in there.
So you got to sell it.
You got to lose your family-friendly
vehicle and because of that you're losing
it.
We got the corvette nomad, the corvair and
the original pala concepts.
(07:26):
All showcased a family-friendly, sports
inspired vehicle.
But that wasn't enough.
Well, along comes the 60s and a gray man by
the name of john zachary delorean takes a
pontiac tempest, jams a big block v8
underneath the hood and gives birth to the
muscle car era with the GTO.
(07:46):
Yes, now, if you want to research this, go
back, check it out.
The GTO actually came out and hit the
market before the Ford Mustang, because
essentially the Ford Mustang gave birth to
the pony car era, where the GTO was muscle
cars, because muscle cars is a lot of power
in a regular car.
By doing that they put a ton of power in
and kids loved it.
(08:07):
I can now take my mom's car out all this
power, and go drag racing.
Sure, sports cars are great, but it's only
two seats.
I want to go out and I want to drag race.
I want to bring my girlfriend and my best
bud, because you know we're going out
partying but we're going to race there.
We got balls deep power in this bad boy.
Muscle cars kind of gave us our new entry
(08:28):
into somewhat of a family-friendly sports
car.
But the funniest thing is, while we were
doing this, the concept world was also
giving us something else.
They were giving us four-door mustangs,
they were giving us four-door corvettes.
They were showing us maybe the sports car
industry can still have that
family-friendly luster that we all want,
because we want fun car.
(08:50):
And I'm going to quote one of my favorite
TV shows here, and Otto, when he asked for
the money from Grandpa Simpson.
You know, I want to soup up the bus and I
want to jam those kids to school at two of
the miles an hour man.
Here's an artist's rendition.
Notice the naked chick with the snake on
the front.
Yeah, otto wanted that.
And every time I think about it and see
really cool ideas like that out there, it's
(09:11):
amazing the aftermarket industry is full of
it.
The concept of the SRT Hellcat-powered
Chrysler Pacifica is something I would want.
Not jam my kids to school on, that damn
thing, I don't really care.
Hell, I'd use a Durango RT.
Lots of power.
It's more of a family-friendly power
vehicle, but it's not a family-friendly
sports car.
And car companies still hadn't got that.
(09:33):
In the 70s we started getting muscle
car-infused station wagons.
Oh yeah, we had the Chevelle wagon, we had
the Torino wagon, we had station wagon with
the same big block engine.
We were jamming underneath the hood of
these muscle cars.
So isn't that a family friendly sports car?
No, that's the same thing as when the dodge
charger came back and they put a hemi
(09:54):
underneath the hood of it.
Well, it's a family friendly sports car.
Not not necessarily, because one.
The hemi edition usually came with the rt
or the srt, so it's an aftermarket
variation of the vehicle.
So it's not a dedicated sports car.
It's originally built to be a standard
sedan.
We're just beefing it up the muscle cars
like the chevelle ss wagon was essentially
(10:15):
just a muscle car with more space in it, it
still ran on the muscle car field and even
though we had seen four-door Mustang
concepts hell, even Corvettes or even
Corvette shooting brakes, we still didn't
have one.
Now the shooting brake is one of the few
ways we managed to get a family-friendly
sports car by the 1970s Companies doing
(10:36):
conversions or even selling variations of
coach-built ones right from the factory,
like Jaguar and even Corvette did Hell.
There's even a Trans Am station station
wagon, but they're not factory produced.
It's something that's still manufactured
outside of the realms of the standard
product.
Those jaguar xj's you see as shooting
(10:57):
brakes, those didn't come off the
production line.
Those are built afterwards.
And yet again, we're still not getting our
family-friendly sports cars.
We're getting a market that's trying to
build interest for it.
We're getting people highly interested in
it because of the added cost of buying the
vehicle and then building this on top of it.
It's still out of the hands of your average
(11:19):
consumer and your average consumer is the
number one person who wants that
family-friendly sports car.
Any rich person out there can get that
supercar and then roll up in a Rolls Royce.
It's got supercar power underneath the hood
of it, but it doesn't roll that way.
No, it's just a cruiser.
It's one of those fun vehicles.
If you're going to drop it like it's hot,
(11:40):
you want to do it in a Range Rover, rolls
Royce, bentley Still not your
family-friendly sports car we're looking
for.
Now, with the rise of the shooting brake
industry blending into the sports car arena,
we started getting more interest.
People were seeing these things in
magazines and they wanted them, but they
wanted them again at the entry-level prices.
(12:03):
Companies started figuring this out and
they realized they can command a higher
degree price range for these
family-friendly sports cars and if you're
building them off of standard products, you
can yield a better income from it.
By the 1980s a bunch of companies started
figuring this out to meet new CAF agreement
rules.
The Ford Mustang, for the first time in
history, came with a four-cylinder engine.
(12:25):
They needed to meet these new regulations
and they wanted to make it a fuel-efficient
muscle car.
Now the four-cylinder doesn't fall into the
muscle car arena, but it still has the
image of that muscle car, and with four
seats, a four-cylinder engine and a
budget-friendly entry price oh, isn't this
family friendly sports car?
It kind of is building on the momentum of
(12:45):
the marketplace that we wanted, but it's
not giving us what we need, because for a
dedicated, family-friendly sports car, we
need four doors.
Ferrari started playing around with the
idea of a four-door sedan and even though
the product was great it was almost almost
production ready they decided to pull the
plug on it because the last minute they
(13:06):
realized that this vehicle could
essentially destroy the image of Ferrari.
Porsche was playing around with the idea as
well, stretching out a 959 to make a sedan
variation of it.
Both companies were sports cars, purebred
sports car manufacturers, and they were
considering building a high-volume vehicle
to get rich families to the golf course.
(13:27):
This wasn't about mom or dad hopping in the
Ferrari with their golf clubs or, you know,
skates or whatever else.
You're going to do Yoga mat.
You know the hot mom in the Ferrari with
the yoga mat.
I'm going to leave that image there,
driving out to what they were going to do,
you know, and then coming home.
No, this is family friendly.
These are a bunch of rich people that want
to hop in their Ferrari, they want to drive
(13:48):
all the way to Six Flags and they want to
go ride roller coasters all day.
They want to get their food and they want
to come home.
These are the same people that want to go
to a high event gala.
They want to roll a crack at destroying
their image.
Ferrari especially, because they
(14:08):
essentially built that empire on sports
cars With the help of the Formula One team.
That's what people wanted to know them for.
Porsche was a little bit different on the
other side, but in the late 70s,
lamborghini was going after a military
contract to try and keep the company alive.
They decided to use their engineering from
the tractor division to help build the
(14:30):
LMP-001, which is going to become a new
vehicle for the Italian military.
It's going to be the fastest accelerating
pickup truck in the desert scene ever.
It's going to be great and it's going to be
a Lamborghini.
Now, lamborghini didn't do it to chase
volumes.
No, they did it for a military contract.
Now, when that military contract was
awarded to Fiat, they literally threw their
hands up in the air and said Fuck, what are
(14:51):
we going to do now?
We spent all this money on this.
Oh shit, man.
If we turn around and sold it to the
average consumer or, well, wealthy consumer,
how many would we have to build to make our
money back and possibly make a profit off
of it.
So they crunched the numbers and realized
they could.
The LM001 was essentially the first foray
(15:14):
into a family-friendly sports car.
Now, it wasn't for everyone.
There were very limited production volumes.
It was only for high-end clienteles.
They ran into a lot of issues with these
things, and even the box on it was really
non-existent.
It was small and barely used for anything.
But the people that were buying it were
(15:34):
buying it so them and their friends and
family could get out to the cottage, drive
through the sand dunes.
Rich sheiks were piling their friends into
the vehicles and going blaring through the
back sand dunes.
This was all fun, the fun for the family,
and lamborghini got us in there.
Well, now it's the late 90s, and the 90s is
kind of a crazy time.
We're going through a major transition.
We're getting better fuel economy, we're
starting to look at new power sources.
(15:56):
We're going through a full design change
where we, you know, don't have to be
subjected to either round or square
headlights.
All those standards are now blown out the
window.
We can create whatever bubble designs,
bubble headlights, all new technology.
Computers are starting to take off.
We can do anything.
And then Dodge says hey, remember the
Charger, that amazing muscle car from back
in the day.
Let's add two more doors to it and let's
(16:18):
bring it out to the public.
The original concept was essentially a
family-friendly sports car.
Its design looked like today's
coupe-profile sedans.
We had the CLS, which essentially helped
pioneer the coupe-profile sedan market,
with the Volkswagen Passat CC coming in
behind it.
For your average consumer, the Dodge
(16:38):
Charger was paving the way for this.
Now, when the model finally hit the
marketplace, utilizing the Dodge Hemi-C
concept a really weird ass looking thing
you couldn't see anything from that.
That kind of made it into it, except for
its profile.
When the Charger came out, we didn't see it
as a muscle car, we saw it as a sedan.
But as Dodge started putting more and more
(16:59):
power into it, putting more emphasis on the
amount of power in it, we started to see it
as a family-friendly muscle car.
Sorry to say, dodge kind of lost the boat
on that one.
They went after the muscle car era yet
again with a four-door product.
A couple years down the road, Lamborghini
has been taken over by Volkswagen and Lotus
is with Proton.
Both companies are looking for a new way to
(17:21):
make more money and after seeing the
success of the Porsche Cayenne and Porsche
having the idea of building a sedan.
Now the Panamera, Lamborghini plays around
with the idea of the Evoque.
Lotus gives us a sedan.
Now only one of those two companies today
actually built that sedan years later.
But they thought about it.
(17:42):
They said to themselves porsche creating a
CUV for its production line massively
changed the run, how they were about to buy
out Volkswagen before the market took a
tumble and essentially that wheels turned
and Volkswagen bought them out completely.
But the cayenne was showcasing to us you
can add all the sports car features into a
CUV.
(18:02):
And they're about to do it again with the
Panamera Add all the sports car features
into a four-door sedan.
They were building family-friendly sports
cars.
A Porsche Cayenne is essentially one of the
very first family-friendly sports cars and,
with its price being a lot lower than the
LM001, its versatility being way off the
scale compared to the original Lamborghini,
(18:24):
and the fact that its price point put it in
line with more entry-level, high-end
earners and not just million and
billionaires, it was more in line with the
markets.
Cadillac helped show the marketplace that
these big, burly SUVs and SUVs could be
done when they created the Cadillac
Escalade, the first generation off the
(18:46):
original GMC Yukon Denali.
But for Porsche to give us the Cayenne and
then release the Panamera.
They were showcasing to us that a sports
car company can change itself.
They could still sell their high-end
product the 911s, the 911 turbos, the 918s,
the Boxster's, the Caymans but still appeal
(19:07):
to those same families when mom or dad hops
in the 911 to go back and forth to work on
the weekends, they hop in the Cayenne and
Panamera to go skiing, to go to the cottage,
to go on a road trip somewhere.
These were built for families in mind, but
yet again, trip somewhere.
These were built for families and mine.
But yet again it's still just a standard
sedan and a standard CUV.
Not too long after this, Ferrari saw that
(19:29):
there was a marketplace for somewhat of an
enhanced Grand Touring product, they looked
at their Grand Touring lineup and said can
we do more?
And, not wanting to saturate their brand
image like Porsche did, they decided to
create the Ferrari FF, essentially a
Ferrari for the family market, a lot more
(19:51):
easily accessible to get into the back
seats than the standard GD products and
with the shooting brake design you could
store more product in there as well.
You can, or people can, comfortably go on a
weekend ski trip in it.
This wasn't your standard grand touring
product.
This was more.
This was suited to the family person.
Now wasn't suited people with really small
(20:11):
kid.
The cayenne was there, the Panamera was
there, Ferrari hadn't gone.
Essentially, the FF is what the corvette
created back in the 70s.
The aerovent, like we said, is one of the
most civilized versions of a grand touring
product for the people.
But it's still not enough.
We need more.
Kick the can a little further down the road.
Here we are coming into the teen years of
(20:33):
the 2000s.
The electric industry is starting to gain
traction.
Ford sees something new.
They're not the first company to make
notice of this.
The original Nissan Murano that came out in
the early 2000s was essentially a
sport-infused crossover utility market.
It wasn't just a standard CUV which kind of
took the profile of a standard SUV.
(20:55):
No, this had a flowing design that embodied
more performance to it, kind of like the
Infiniti, fx35s and 45s.
They made it seem like a high-riding sports
car more than a standard CUV.
But at that point in time we just called
them CUVs, because that's all we saw.
Anything that was lifted above the ground
was a CUV.
(21:15):
Anything close to the ground was a station
wagon.
Well, by the teen years, late teen years,
we could could say a new marketplace was
starting to take shape.
Coupe profiles of cuvs were starting to
come out.
We were starting to give people more of
that coupe style for vehicles.
BMW gave us the X6, Mercedes gave us the
CLS coupes when everybody was going after
(21:36):
this.
But these, these were just, you know,
standard cuvs with a trunk.
It's a coupe, it's utilizing a coupe
profile, it's not utilizing a sports car
profile.
We need something that looks like a sports
car to give us that full family-friendly
experience and we have to make it available
to the masses.
Well, ford became the company to crack that
code, similar to henry ford cracking the
(21:58):
original code to bring vehicles to the
entire masses of the world.
Ford cracked it and created with the
earliest active lifestyle vehicles you can
find, with the mustang Mach-e.
Yeah, it's a four-door version of the ford
mustang, but it's not a sedan, it's not a
SUV, it's not a crossover,
So what is it?
(22:19):
It's an active lifestyle vehicle.
So for my generation you know they call me
the millennial, but I'm kind of like that
what is that mid-tier generation that runs
between 1977 and 1983?
Yeah, I'm right, in there we're the people
that want to go out.
You know we tend to do more yoga, go to
exercising, go hiking.
(22:39):
We're the people that have active
lifestyles.
The cross-track and trekking market really
brought us into this adventurous style.
But now we have a family and we want to get
around town.
We still want that old drive ability to go
on dirt roads, but we want to look like
we're going fast as we're sitting on the
road.
We can't afford to get a Mustang because we
can't afford that third vehicle, but we
(23:05):
want to have something that's fun and looks
great.
The market finally answered us with the
arrival of the Mustang.
Mach-e Gave birth to the first full-bred,
family-friendly sports car to hit the
market.
It showed us something that we can all get
Hell.
Myself, I can afford to get one.
My father can afford to get one.
My aunt that runs a million-dollar
corporation can afford to get one.
My father can afford to get one.
My aunt that runs a million dollar
corporation can afford to get one.
We all can get it.
So the sports car market is just within our
grasps.
You know they had sport infused vehicles.
(23:27):
For years I owned a CX-9 first generation
and, trust me, that thing really took its
motto to heart.
Mazda back in the day used to use that
motto Zoom, zoom.
You know they had that kid that used to
come on right after the car went by and
went Zoom, zoom.
Yeah, that one.
My CX-9, first generation.
That thing was crazy.
I used to go off off-ramps and I could
still hit between 80 and 90 kilometers an
(23:49):
hour.
Taking an off-ramp.
I'd drive my truck and my beast of a Borrego.
After that, a lot more power in the CX-9, I
felt like it was tipping at 60.
And this thing was doing it at like 80.
It felt like a sports car.
It handled similar to a sports car but it
fit my family.
I wouldn't call it a family-friendly sports
car.
It was a sport-infused crossover utility
vehicle.
But an active lifestyle vehicle is
(24:11):
dedicated for that sports car-interested
family person.
The Lamborghini Urus does that.
The new Ferrari Purosangue does that.
They all give us this inspiration that we
could take our families for a fun night out.
You know I'm going to use a context from
you know way back, so don't get pissed at
me for saying this.
(24:32):
But you know dad just wants to take the
family out to get some ice cream, but he
doesn't want to have to worry about kids
getting ice cream all over his 70 mustangs
interior.
Now he's gonna throw them in the Mach-e.
We're gonna look cool, we do it.
We're gonna drive fast.
We're gonna have fun, we're driving
something.
With the name.
It may hurt the image of the vehicle, but
since the mustang name is so strong and
it's been born into a new age with both its
(24:53):
design, its power and its history having
the four cylinder in that, it showed us
that a sports car can be more.
General motors is now looking at this and
they're thinking of bringing back the
camaro as a brand new crossover utility
vehicle, more of an active lifestyle
vehicle, to compete in this brand new
family-friendly sports car market.
You know the luxury market end has had
(25:15):
these vehicles for a few decades, but entry
level customers are just starting to get
them.
Hell, the blazer returning onto a
marketplace like that is trying to go after
that appearance but in all reality we all
know it's just a crossover utility vehicle
using the name of a fully bred off-road
truck.
Okay, yeah, the blazer, that was utility,
(25:36):
not civil life.
So the sports car appeal is coming out
Creating a Corvette or Camaro sub-brand,
utilizing the Charger name for both a two
and four-door model now, and having
vehicles like the SRT8 Durango's out there.
The family-friendly sports car market is
starting to take off.
With the drop in sales in the sports car
(25:56):
market, with people reverting back to two
car households, these car companies have to
figure something out to get people to buy
sports cars.
What's the best way to do it?
And let the family man have what he really
wants.
You know, I know tons of people that you
know they're always pushed into buying
minivans.
Or you know the big Suburbans oh, we need
something for the family and we need it to
(26:18):
be safe and, you know, have all kinds of
good features and easily accessible in the
back of your head.
Just going, shut the fuck up, I just want
to drive fast.
Plus, I gotta drive this beast of a thing.
I don't look like a freaking, you know
weird ass tool who's basically whipped by
my spouse.
Now I want to look like I'm cool and have
fun.
I'll be rolling up with this gum between my
(26:38):
fingers.
Go, oh yeah, that's right, this is mine,
this is mine.
Oh yeah, I don't be rolling up the minivan
all crouched up forward because I'm not
allowed to adjust the seat.
Like Adam Sandler in that one movie, I just
got to see the perfect position.
Sure you're not uncomfortable.
No, no, I'm good it.
And, as I like to say, when I get into my wife's
RAV with her seat way forward, I'm like I
(26:59):
always take the steering wheel and I look
at my kids and go and I roll the seat back
and I go.
If you watch the Simpsons, you know exactly
what line I'm doing.
Okay, yeah, yeah, you know which one.
And it's funny because it's true.
It's true because we're so lame.
Yeah, it's so true, but in all reality,
that's what we want.
(27:20):
We want these family-friendly sports cars.
Porsche is the first company to do that for
us and now they're trying to electrify all
of them.
Lotus is replicating the success of Porsche
with their brand new electric SUV and sedan
Lamborghini.
They get the US.
They're not considering expanding upon that,
but they still have it.
Ferrari's finally given us the Purosangue.
(27:41):
Mclaren and Koenigsegg are kind of sitting
back.
Koenigsegg doesn't want to get into this,
but they did create the Gemera, A gull-wing
sedan.
In a sense, it's the same idea as the
DeLorean Alpha 5 that's coming out
Essentially a four-seat sports car.
Yeah, essentially a four-seat sports car.
Yeah, they're here.
They're only for the rich, but we finally
have that family-friendly sedan that looks
(28:01):
exactly like a sports car, we got the
Camaro and the DeLorean Alpha 5.
And because it's only one solid door that
opens up to expose two seats on either side,
it essentially falls into the same lines as
the sports car industry.
So, yeah, it's here here.
Will it diminish the appeal of other
people's cars?
Will it kill the two-door model arena?
(28:23):
Or we just managed to find a way to crack
the actual sports car marketplace?
Are gullwing doors the answer?
Because we all know that for conventional
doors, I mean, it's just a sedan, but two
gullwing doors sized well enough to expose
two seats on the other side, that's
something completely different.
So for today's marketplace, the
(28:43):
family-friendly sports car has arrived.
Active lifestyle vehicles are where they're
at, and anything else and over and above
that, it's just pure fun.
So my friend that had to sell his 300ZX to
get that stupid.
He didn't buy a minivan, but he got a
stupid, freaking, crappy suv.
You know he's a ford guy, so probably an
explorer in today's market.
Yeah, he can get rid of his 300zx, but he
(29:04):
can go out and get himself a Mach-e.
It's cool, it's fun, it's great.
The family-friendly sports car it's here.
It looks like it's going to be sticking
around for a while.
So if you like this podcast, we'd like
share a comment about it on any of the
major social feeds or streaming sites that
you've found the AutoLooks podcast on.
Like us, comment about us, share us, you
know.
Send us a comment about what you think is a
(29:25):
cool, what you would consider
family-friendly sports car.
Do you agree with some of the ones that we
talked about in this?
Are you like myself?
I still don't consider the Mustang Mach-E a
true Mustang.
It's the purebred Mustang name.
Now it's got to be a big, burly, two-door
V8 pony car.
But in a sense I'm also a family man.
(29:45):
So I buy a Mustang Mach-E just so I can say
I got a Mustang that I jam my kids to
school in.
You know, it does have that coolness ring
to it, as opposed to pulling up an
SRT-8-powered Pacifica.
People are like, oh, you got a Pacifica,
yeah, Pacifica.
People are like, oh, you got a Pacifica,
yeah, but it's got a big block V8
underneath the hood.
I'm pumping out 600 horsepower in this bad
boy.
Eh, it's still a Pacifica.
When you roll up in the Mustang, you're
like, ooh, a Mustang.
(30:05):
Yeah, it's an electric Mustang, it's still
got four doors, but it's a Mustang.
Ooh, get my drift.
That's why the family-friendly sports cars
have finally come out, that we finally
passed the generational gap where vehicles
like this are socially acceptable and can
be socially acceptable as those names, even
if you know I've done podcasts about it
(30:26):
where they essentially just stripped the
soul out of the original vehicle and put it
into a different one.
You're Ursula and you took Ariel's soul.
You're using a part number one.
No, no, not really, it's just reutilization
of the name.
Dodge started it with the Charger.
Like I said, go back, check out the website.
Go to AutoLooks.net, read some of the reviews,
check out some of the ratings.
Go to the Corporate Links website page.
(30:46):
Big or small, we have them all available on
the AutoLooks.net website, on the Corporate
Links tab at the top of the page, and if
you click the podcast one, you can bring up
this podcast and see the cars that we have
talked about.
I know we don't have, you know, full scale
YouTube video where you can see all these
things flipping in the back.
But you know what?
Sometimes you got to do a little bit
digging.
(31:06):
Sometimes you got to use your fingers and
your mind and bypass artificial
intelligence and do the work yourself to
find some of these things.
Trust me, it's a lot more fun.
If you have trouble, you have trouble.
Send us an email.
Tell us how much it sucks, how much I
should go shove it, whatever else, I don't
really give a crap.
Send it Like it, comment about it, post it,
do what you want.
You're your own person, you got your own
opinions and we're all for that.
(31:32):
The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you
with us.
Send us an email over at email@
AutoLooks.net.
So for myself, Everett Jay, the host and
owner both the AutoLooks website and the
AutoLooks Podcast, and is a general manager
of Ecomm Entertainment Group, strap yourself
in for this one fun wild ride these brand
new sports cars are going to take us on.
(31:55):
Thank you.
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