August 11, 2025 • 29 mins
What if the sports cars of yesteryear could make a thrilling comeback in today's rapidly evolving automotive world?
The journey through the sports car landscape is as thrilling as the cars themselves, from their European roots in the 1930s to the iconic models that inspired generations. We explore how wartime encounters with nimble roadsters lit a spark that ignited the American market, leading to legendary creations like the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Thunderbird. Yet, today's sports car market faces an uphill battle, grappling with evolving consumer tastes and stricter regulations that cloud the future of these beloved machines.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the 3030s and everybody's thinking
about well, not the automobile, because a
lot of people are losing their jobs, a lot
of people are losing their shirts and
families are being torn apart.
Hell, people are even selling their kids at
this point in time.
Yeah, yeah, you can send them through the
mail and everything else, but the
automobile was actually starting to
transition by the late 20s.
We started seeing that, well, some of us
(00:23):
only like to go somewhere with one other
person.
We wanted some leisure time and we wanted
to do a little more fast and a little bit
more nimble than the standard automobiles
that people gave us.
We wanted to have fun and that fun
eventually would grow into a brand new
segment of the automobile industry.
But today that fun industry is slowly dying
out as people wait longer to get their
license, don't see a need in a third
(00:45):
vehicle and don't view the automobile as
something fun anymore, thanks to new laws
and regulations on the roads.
Yes, today we're talking about the sports
car market, where it came from, where it
was and what may happen to it in its future.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the auto looks podcast.
I am your host, as always, the doctor to
the automotive industry, mr everett j,
coming to you from our host website at
autoluxnet.
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(01:29):
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us an email over at email at autoluxnet.
So, like I said in the intro, the 1930s it
wasn't really a time you're thinking about
sports cars and individual automobiles.
Well, not everybody in the world, you have
to remember there's still some people that
had money.
(01:49):
Well, outside of north america there are
lots of people with still money and
economies that were still doing good.
During the 1930s we started to see the
introduction of small little boutique
builders building tiny little roadsters for
us to go and have fun with.
Royals over in Europe wanted to go and
cruise because the automobile was now
considered part of their culture.
(02:11):
Everywhere you went, automobile was there
and people didn't want to be chauffeured
around all the time in these big limos or
drive around in standard automobiles.
No, no, no.
They wanted to go out and have fun, and one
country in particular really liked the idea
of this, and with a lot of royals and a lot
of dukes and duchesses and everyone else,
(02:31):
they had a market for tiny little sports
cars.
Companies like Riley, alfa Romeo and MG
Morris Garage started building these tiny
little sports cars for the upper class.
Now we all know what happened.
By the end of the 1930s and into the 40s,
all hell broke loose over in Europe and as
the Allies came in from countries like
(02:52):
Canada, australia, new Zealand, hell, even
parts of South America, and eventually,
near the end of the war, after the
Americans got bombed horribly in Pearl
Harbor, they decided to finally join the
war effort.
Now they came in with a big bang, they made
a big bang and then they claimed they, you
know, won it all for everyone, when really
you showed up at the last minute, did a big
blowout show and then walked away from it.
(03:14):
But while they were over in Europe they
started noticing these small little sports
cars, mgs especially.
They found them incredible.
Back in America nobody had these things.
Sure, we had the little Ford Model T
Roadster, but we didn't have something like
a little MG J2 midget or an N-Type or, hell,
even the MGP-Type.
These were fun little cars to go scoot
(03:35):
around the back country in, and as they saw
these, they started realizing these are
great, and some of them stayed in the
European countries.
They utilized these little vehicles to get
in and around and a lot of them started
having them shipped home If they could.
You have to remember, not every single
buddy could afford to send them home, so
they put them on the boats and they shipped
them back.
And, as we all know, after listening to our
podcast about the Volkswagen Beetle, the
(03:57):
Allies gained access to the Volkswagen
machine shop and with that, volkswagen
itself learned how to make these small,
tiny little cars.
Well, the allies at that time America,
canada, australia, great Britain, france,
poland, finland we were all in it to help.
And by helping build back the Volkswagen
manufacturing plant, we realized that small
(04:19):
little vehicles like this, especially ones
that could be fun on back roads, are
something that people were looking at
extensively.
Oh yeah, and the little MGs started making
their way back to America, at that point in
time the biggest single automotive market
in the world.
Even to this day, the United States is
still one of the top automotive markets in
(04:39):
the world, fighting it out every single
year with China, kind of back and forth in
hell.
India is slowly moving in there and once
they get their foot in the door and more
people into the middle class, trust me,
they're coming after that first place
position as well.
But as of today, some of those markets
don't have sports cars.
What happened, like?
Why did we lose our love affair with sports
cars started coming out in the 1930s and by
(05:02):
thes, when all these war heroes were coming
home and they weren't able to afford to
bring these vehicles back with them, they
started demanding them from the car
companies around us.
Hell, by the 1950s we had the Chevrolet
Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird.
They were giving us what we saw on the
other side of the world.
Unfortunately, they came with a lot bigger
power plants than the ones we had on the
(05:23):
other side of the planet and they were
bigger than what we had, because in America,
you know, bigger is always better.
Not necessarily.
You've had some great small car companies
which you really didn't jump on the
bandwagon with.
Come on, really.
But the little MGs came back and more
people wanted them and they wanted to have
fun.
Well, mg found a brand new market they
could sell in bringing the company up.
(05:43):
Alfa Romeo started coming in with their
tiny little spiders and by the mid to late
50s the sports car or essentially in
America, the roadster rivals.
The British invasion of the roadsters
started taking over American roads.
These sports cars were everywhere.
Everyone wanted them, people were able to
afford them, jobs were everywhere and
(06:04):
people were able to afford having a small
fun car Not every single person out there,
but still a lot of people.
So they all wanted these small little
sports cars.
They wanted to have fun.
But eventually these would become
Americanized.
On this side of the planet, on the other
side of the world, in Japan, small little
roadsters were coming out, same with in
Great Britain, the European marketplaces,
(06:24):
these miniature roadsters and small little
sports cars that were amazingly fun on back
roads.
And with the European marketplace and even
Asian marketplaces having tight roads that
have been around for thousands of years, we
needed to fit these vehicles on them.
Something like a Corvette or a Thunderbird
was out of the question.
Even today, if you listen to that, you know
this whole tariff thing between Great
(06:45):
Britain and America kind of worked out, as
American vehicles won't be taxed in
European marketplaces but Europeans will be.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
We need to sell more American cars in
Europe.
You have to look at it at this standpoint.
Australia is a big market that the
Americans could go after.
They like big vehicles, european
marketplace, skinny little roads, towns
that have been around for over a thousand
(07:05):
years, with tiny little cobblestone
parkways.
You ever wonder why the Fiat 500 was so big
in those marketplaces, why something like
the Alfa Romeo Spyder came from those
markets.
In North America we look at these small
little cars and we don't think anything of
them.
And that became a problem later on.
The British invasion happened during the
1950s and into the 60s.
By the 1970s companies like Triumph and MG
(07:27):
were starting to falter as the Americans
were making waves with their muscle cars
and the muscle car domination in the
marketplace was taking fold.
By the late 60s and into the early 70s, big
burly American power is what that market
wanted.
These tiny little roadsters they didn't
want.
So the sports car market started to retract.
But then, bam, middle of the 70s, we get
(07:49):
hit with the oil embargo.
Gas starts drying up, america's running out
and we need to find a new suitable place to
get gasoline.
We eventually make our way into the Middle
East and with it we get cheaper oil, we get
the oil we need to power our vehicles.
And with that, well, let's just say the end
of the big block era has come about.
(08:11):
Why the big American power and these big
muscle cars start dying out in the 70s?
Well, the gas crisis hit them Big gas
guzzling V8s.
Well, leaded fuel was a big thing.
Catalytic converters didn't come in.
But the Europeans and Japanese already
realized they had a limited amount of fuel,
so they needed to use it wisely.
These big motors couldn't fit on their big
(08:32):
streets.
Insurance premiums were higher for big
motors in a lot of their select markets.
Why do you think the Corvette never really
took off in European marketplaces or Asian
marketplaces?
That big block V8 is a gas peg and it's
select markets in the world.
You're taxed on the size of your engine.
So having a tiny little four-cylinder you
could beef that horsepower up to over 500
(08:55):
in no problem still qualifies for your
four-cylinder insurance.
But that big block V8 didn't matter if it
only had 150 horsepower underneath the hood.
But the big block V8 didn't matter if it
only had 150 horsepower underneath the hood.
You were getting taxed Gas guzzling
insurance rates.
So those big sports cars from America were
not making it through.
The small little sports cars of the
European and Asian marketplaces were making
their way into the world and as people were
(09:18):
still demanding these amazing little sports
cars, the markets started to rebound by the
late 70s and into the 80s.
We start getting the second coming of the
sports car market with the gas embargo,
brand new safety features and now specific
fuel consumption ratings for vehicles being
mandatory Even in America.
(09:39):
These small little sports cars from Asian
and European marketplaces were going to
have a second coming.
Sure, the Triumph TR7 was an ugly looking
little sports car, but it was still cheaper
on gas than your Corvette or your Mustang
Hell.
Even by this time the Mustang had moved on
to the Pinto platform, a smaller platform,
gone back to its roots of being a small
sports car and less of a power-hungry
(10:01):
muscle car.
They still had the power-hungry Mustang II
with the Cobra Jet engine in it, but it was
still built off a Pinto platform.
And with that, ford released a
four-cylinder in the Mustang.
But the four-cylinder, you may think.
Well, that's horrible.
You can't do that to the Mustang, it's
going to kill its name off.
At this point in time, the gas crisis set
in and not everybody being able to afford
(10:23):
those big block V8s and filling them up.
People were looking at economy entries into
the sports car game.
Where Ford hadn't done this, the Mustang
could have dissolved from the marketplace
completely.
Hell, the Camaro and Firebird managed to
hold on, but even still dropping to
six-cylinder engines as entry-level models
was unheard of only a few years previous to
(10:43):
that, dodge held out way too long and
eventually killed themselves.
By having too many big, burly engines at a
time when people started demanding smaller
engines nearly bankrupt them.
Eventually they came back with some smaller
engines and built themselves back up, and
with that a partnership with another
Japanese counterpart, mitsubishi, brought
(11:04):
them a brand new formation of sports cars
to the American marketplace.
Sports cars were back Late 70s.
People started seeing them as an added
vehicle.
They're the ones that you wanted to get
when you graduated high school.
You know the rich kids can go out and buy
the big V8s, but we had to settle for the
little four-cylinder Mustangs.
We still got a Mustang, but what did that
(11:24):
do to us?
We couldn't afford to outright buy the big
block V8 right out of the gate.
What we started doing is tinkering with the
smaller engines.
They were more fuel efficient, which means
we saved money on gas.
So that money we were saving on gas we
decided to utilize that to add a little bit
more power to our vehicles.
This helped give birth to the craze of the
(11:46):
four-cylinder sports car generation In the
1980s.
Two-doors were all in, coupes were
everywhere.
Hell, brand new marketplaces were coming
out the mini sports market, japanese and
even European marketplaces, the key car
market that already existed before.
But now in North America we were starting
to get into this.
Vehicles like the original MR2 and Nissan
(12:06):
Pulsar, hell, even Hyundai with its
original S Coupe and Geostorm were
essentially mini sports cars.
They were for those entry-level people who
wanted the look of a sports car but didn't
have the money to afford a full-blown one.
From that we moved into what we called the
sports coupe marketplace.
You're starting to get into things like the
(12:27):
original Opel GTs, even the Plymouth
Turismo and the rebirth of the Dodge
Charger in the late 70s and early 80s.
It wasn't a sports car, it was a sports car
coupe.
It was more of a coupe profile with a
sports car image embraced upon it.
Getting things like a 40XP or even an
Nissan Silvia was cool.
You had a cool car, but with that you
(12:50):
needed something more and, like we said,
people started adding more power to them,
realizing they could get more power out of
these cars.
But it's the 80s.
People who are coming back still want those
big, burly V8s.
They want the muscle cars.
So the sports car market is there to get
people through the door, because everybody
wants a two-door.
You have to remember the Oldsmobile Delta
(13:11):
88.
They had a two-door variation of it.
Like, come on, this thing is a beast.
And there was a two-door model of it.
Yeah, we get it, it's not a sports car,
it's a coupe.
But two doors were all the rage in the 80s
and into the early 90s.
Every manufacturer had at least four
variations of sports cars.
You have to remember toyota had the paseo,
the mr2, the celica and then the supra hell,
(13:32):
even honda.
They had the crx, the del sols and then the
preludes preludes, a sports coupe, because
you have the honda accord coupe and the
honda civic coupe.
The prelude may have been built off their
platform, but it was dedicated as a
two-door with a coupe.
Look so it's a sports coupe.
These vehicles were coming out and giving
birth to a brand new sports car generation.
(13:53):
Unfortunately, it would take until the late
90s before all the great vehicles of that
time were finally recognized for how
amazing they are.
Take Take a look today for a 1986 to 1989
Toyota Corolla GTS in North America.
The AE86s, the Trenos you know from that
amazing show, initial D.
When I was in college you could pick one of
(14:14):
those things up for like less than $1,500
anywhere Today.
Looking at them, you're lucky if you could
find one under $10,000 because there's so
limited amount of them.
These sports cars from that generation were
big People at them.
You're lucky if you can find one under
$10,000 because there's so limited amount
of them.
These sports cars from that generation were
big.
People loved them.
But they love them now.
They didn't love them then.
People bought them, drove them as their
first vehicles until they can afford that
Camaro, that V8 Mustang, until they can get
(14:36):
the big, powerful cars.
And from there they slowly moved up the
food chain getting Supras, getting 300ZXs.
They wanted those fast touring cars.
They didn't want those little chintzy
sports cars that got us through the door.
The mini sports, the sports coupes and the
sports cars.
They started disappearing.
But in 1989, one company showed us that
(14:57):
there are still a market for entry-level
mini sports cars.
When the Mazda Miata came out first
generation blew up on the scene.
Everybody loved them and everybody wanted
them.
This was a mini roadster that brought back
the feeling of the MG in the 1950s, when we
all fell in love with it.
This was it.
The Miata was going to take us through.
(15:18):
But the Miata essentially was an
entry-level sports car, because from the
Miata you went to the MX-3, the Presidia
right, then you went to the MX-6.
Then you moved up to the RX-7s.
So you had to make your way up Nissan with
its Pulsar, its Silvias, or, in North
America, our 240SXs.
Hell, they had the 180SX for quite a while
(15:40):
and then you moved up to the 300ZX.
If you lived in European marketplaces, then
you would finally get to the top tier and
get your GTR or Nissan Skylines.
We didn't get that in North America, but we
got these tiny little sports cars.
Toyota gave us a two-door sport coupe
version of the Corolla called the Corolla
GTS, and I remember seeing these things at
kids and thinking they're really cool, like
(16:02):
it's a Corolla, one of those boring cars on
the road, and now they've given it pop-up
headlights, a sport profile and it's got an
entry-level price that anybody can get into.
It was it.
It's a car that should have sold in mass
quantity, just like the Hyundai S Coupe,
just like the 240s.
People should have been buying them in
droves, but nobody knew that these vehicles
(16:24):
were there because the market was saturated
with so many different products from so
many different companies.
And then it's like somebody just pulled the
rug right out from underneath the sports
car industry.
The Fast and the Furious blew up the
aftermarket scene, but one little key
feature that they put in the first movie
was a changeover from sports cars to sports
sedans.
That Nissan Maxima that was in the original
(16:45):
movie was showcasing to us where we were
going.
It showcased to us that we can make these
sedans just as cool as driving the sports
cars.
And as people started realizing that four
doors could be just as cool as two doors,
we didn't have to go out and buy a two-door
car.
We didn't have to cram our friends into the
back of our vehicle just so we had
something that was cool.
Two doors were out.
(17:05):
We wanted four doors, we wanted everybody
to be comfortable and we wanted to look
good.
You got Grand Ams being customized.
You got Accords being customized, accord
wagons, honda Civic, four doors.
Those Nissan Maximas, dodge had the Neon,
(17:27):
how people were doing Cavaliers, even
though they came with a two-door option,
the more people customized, they still had
the four-door one.
People were willing to do the Ford Focus.
The ZX3s were cool Everybody wanted those
but they also had the ZX5s.
Mazda gave us the Protégé 5.
They had the MPS Mazda Protégé Four doors.
Sure, the Miata still kicked around, but
the MX-6 and MX-3 were gone and the RX-7
was about to kick the bucket.
By the time the Fast and Furious movie came
out, the Supra that starred in that movie
was on its way out.
(17:48):
A higher price and not a lot of kids really
wanting them or noticing how powerful they
really were.
Until that movie came out, the coffin was
already being closed.
Sports cars were being covered up.
The movie built a major aftermarket
industry and built the sports car market
back up at a time that nobody was building
sports cars.
(18:09):
And with that we all changed over and
started doing sedans, minivans, wagons,
hell.
We brought the mini trucking market back,
but we started doing a full-size and quad
cabs.
There weren't a lot of two-door products
anymore.
If you're a kid growing up between the
1960s all the way up to the late 90s, if
you were cool in high school kind of rhymes,
(18:30):
kind of funny you had a two-door vehicle,
two-door truck, two-door coupe, two-door
sports car, two-door grand tourer, hell.
Ferraris were two-door, lamborghinis were
two-door, porsche was two-door.
Today we got four-door Porsches, four-door
Lamborghinis, hell, even a four-door
Ferrari.
Now Everything has moved into these ease
and accessibility, and the sports car
(18:50):
market has literally taken a kick to the
nuts.
A few years ago, one company, after its
purchase from General Motors of Fuji
Industrial, saw that people needed sports
cars.
There wasn't a high demand for them, but
people were lapping up the GTRs and the
Nissan Zs.
They were demanding that the Supra came
(19:11):
back, but these people couldn't afford them.
So Toyota took a look at the market and
said what if we collaborated with our brand
new partner, subaru, and built a car
similar to that original Corolla GTS, the
Trueno, we make the AE86 yet again.
And if you want to know more about this, we
actually did a podcast about the 86, from
the Corolla 86 to the actual Toyota GT 86.
(19:35):
People wanted these.
There wasn't a huge market for it, you got
to remember.
The Miata was still one of the only small
sports cars holding on to that market.
General Motors had killed off everything it
had.
There was no more Pontiac, no more Saturn,
so the Sky and Solstice were gone.
You want a sports car in their marketplace.
You got a six-cylinder Camaro or you went
to a Corvette Ford.
(19:56):
You had a Mustang Dodge.
You can get a six-cylinder Challenger Honda.
You might be able to find yourself a
two-door Civic Coupe, nissan GT-R or Zed.
They still had two.
They had one in the high-volume bracket and
one in the mid-tier MG.
Well, now they're part of Shanghai
Automotive Group and they're kicking it in
select markets, but not back in the North
American marketplace.
(20:17):
Our market is void of sports cars, but
Toyota and Subaru's collaboration for the
GT and the BRZ and when it originally came
out there was no Toyota GT in our
marketplace.
It wasn't a global scale, but in the
American marketplace we had the Scion FR-S.
If you didn't know, this Scion gave birth
to the original sports cars for the Toyota
(20:38):
Motor Group in the 21st century.
We lost the Celica, we lost the MR2.
We lost the Supra, but the 86 was here to
save the day.
And these sports cars are giving us a
comeback Now into their second generation.
They're showing the world that sports cars
can hang on to that lifeline and give us
what we really want as people of my
(20:58):
generation I don't like to say it the
millennials I'm right at the cusp of
millennials and Generation X but we're
starting to get to that point in our life
where we can afford our house, we can
afford our two vehicles and we're now
thinking of something fun for the weekends.
We're looking at what our parents had.
(21:22):
If we live in the city, we really can't use
a snow machine, quad or a boat, so we're
looking at these fun little sports cars.
Hell, myself, I got myself a little stick
shift back in the day and I've just kept it,
no matter how crappy or how many times
people make fun of me for what it is.
I keep it around because it's a five speed,
which are very hard to find these days, and
even though it's a crappy four-door wagon,
it's still fun to throw around.
(21:43):
But in all in all, I wanted a two-door
sports car.
I had to settle, unfortunately, but it
wasn't really until a couple of years ago
that I was able to afford to get something
cooler.
But now I'm kind of looking at rebuilding
the Mustang.
Sorry, I'm getting to that point where I'm
starting to look at that big, burly V8.
But the sports car marketplace is starting
to rebound slightly and now, with the entry
of electric vehicles and the price of
electric vehicles starting to come down,
people are starting to see that maybe in
(22:06):
select areas we can get a third vehicle.
Covid's rush to the suburbs, which actually
is a podcast if you want to listen to how
COVID kind of rushed us all out to the
suburbs and this all intertwines helped us
see that there's more to life than work,
video games, television, our family and
that's about it and going on vacation.
We want more in life and realizing that
(22:27):
autonomous vehicles are just around the
corner, we need something fun, we need
something fast, we need to enjoy life one
last time, even though in my home province
of material they've created what they call
the 50 over law, the stunt driving law,
thanks to some stupid kids that killed a
cop's kid near my in my neck of the woods.
Yeah, kids are assholes, but there are
(22:47):
still areas we can have fun in.
We may not be able to have fun on the
streets like we did way back in the 80s and
90s.
That's essentially what killed the sports
car industry.
More government rules cracking down on
street racing killed the sports car market
Because by having a two-door in the
mid-2000 years you were a target for the
police.
They automatically assumed you were a
street racer and for a lot of us, we
(23:09):
decided to get out of that marketplace.
The truck market started taking off and
then we started customizing sedans,
something that didn't look amazing.
We created sleeper vehicles, some of the
most random things sedans, wagons, minivans.
Then came an altering moment.
It would come from something you didn't
expect the cross track.
Our love affair with crossover utility
(23:31):
vehicles in the aftermarket industry blew
up Fast and Furious.
7 showed us a four-wheel drive system added
to a Camaro and a Charger.
That's pretty cool.
Then a video game called the Crew showed us
building sports cars to go off-road could
be more fun.
Well, a lot of us have kind of jumped on
the bandwagon of the new 4x4 marketplace
(23:51):
and crossover utilities.
We had to get off the streets because the
cops are clamping down on us, but they
don't clamp down on us on back roads in the
middle of the bush because there's no one
else out there.
I get it.
If you live in a major city, this is a
problem for you.
My neck of the woods not really, because
there's a lot of these roads around.
So a lot of us started selling these
vehicles off.
We couldn't have a two-door sports car, but
(24:12):
the market is starting to understand that
maybe.
Maybe the issue is that we need an active
lifestyle vehicle built into a sports car.
The active sports car market.
We've all seen it before People pouring
four-wheel drive Blazers, you know,
powertrain systems underneath a Chevette
okay, building these things way back in the
80s and 90s Hell, even all the way back as
(24:33):
far as the 60s and 70s, people have done
this.
Off-road sports cars, things from the rally
world like the Lancia Stratos and the Audi
Quattro.
That is the key to the sports car market of
the future.
We get it.
The electric vehicle industry and companies
like Alpha Motors building their two-door
sports coupe have given way to us and shown
us that we can get back into this world by
(24:56):
bringing down the price of batteries.
We can enter it with the standard sports
coupe marketplace yet again for young kids
out of high school and people looking for
just something quick, easy and fun to drive
back and forth to work.
But the active sports car market is what
really can save the evolution of the sports
car industry.
Products like the Lamborghini Huracan
Strato or the Porsche Dakar, hell, even the
(25:18):
Ferrari Prius.
It may be four doors, but if you make a
two-door cross-checking version of it, that
would be it these off-road cool sports cars,
because the off-road market is one last
untapped world for the sports car industry.
We've been kicked in the nuts so heavily
over the past decade that the sports car
(25:38):
revolution needs to come back.
It needs to give us something we really,
really desire An ability to go anywhere as
fast as we want, and off-road is where we
gotta go.
So for the sports cars, I'm sorry to say,
but our time on-road may be nearing its end.
Vehicles like the GT86 and the BRZ may keep
it together Now, with Honda bringing back
the Prelude and Nissan reconsidering
bringing the Silvia back Hell.
(26:00):
Even Toyota working on a brand new Celica
with either electric or hybrid powertrain
is showing us that sports cars can make a
return, and for that we love it.
We would love to go back to our days of the
1980s and 90s, when sports cars were
everywhere.
Where you went to your local high school
and there was tons of them.
All over the place, there were tiny little
paseos sitting right next to a big block v8,
(26:23):
mustang.
I want all those people to have fun and
enjoy life, because after high school life
gets serious.
Without having that sports car at a young
age, you don't understand how much fun
you're missing out of in the real world.
I've tried to explain that to my
father-in-law so many times.
I said you never had fun as a kid.
Well, yeah, I did.
No, you didn't.
Literally, having a fun vehicle when you're
younger really opens your eyes to the world.
(26:43):
You see it as an exciting place when you
look at an automobile to get from point A
to point B and that's it, and only ever
drive boring automobiles.
The fun outside your doors.
Yes, I could be one to say that I never
owned a sports car in my life.
I've had the joy of being in them, I've had
the joy of being around them, but not
actually own one.
I've tried to create my own from my own,
shooting big brake wagon Hell, even my
(27:05):
suicide doors on my brain.
It's a coma because it's a club cab, not a
quad.
But even still I yearn for that fun of the
two doors.
Closing the door of my 1970 Mustang,
turning the key and hearing that big, burly
V8 grumble underneath me.
It's an amazing feeling that I look forward
to, but not as amazing as the one I missed
out on when I didn't buy a 1986 Corolla
(27:26):
Notchback version the old GTS Notchback for
$400 when I was in college and I had the
money To this very day.
I kicked myself in the nuts for not doing
that, because that was a sports car that I
would have loved to have had and I missed
out on so much fun.
But not having that early on in my life
that's essentially part of the midlife
crisis the people who never did enjoy the
(27:47):
life of the sports car.
And with that, we need more CEOs like
Toyota has and even Nissan now, seeing that
sports cars and fun needs to be rejuvenated
back into the automobile industry to give
us the pleasure of driving and maybe with
that, the rise of the sports car industry
once again.
So if you like this podcast, please like,
(28:08):
share or comment about it on any major
social feed or streaming sites that you
found the Autolux podcast on.
Like us, share us, comment about us.
Us send us out to your friends, your family,
your well-wishers, your boss, you know,
co-workers, whatever, we don't care.
Get the word out about auto looksnet and
get the word out about the auto looks
podcast.
Like us, share us, follow us.
Find out more of the podcasts we've talked
(28:29):
about.
Go back and listen to some of the ones we
talked about in this podcast.
You know our podcast about the gt86, or
even COVID's rush to the suburbs Hell, the
return of the two and a half car driveway.
There's some great stories out there that
you need to listen to, about this industry
and how it can come back to life once again,
all available from one place the autoluxnet
website and the Autolux podcast.
(28:51):
The Autolux podcast is brought to you by
Ecom Entertainment Group and distributed by
podbeamcom.
If you'd like to get in touch with us, send
us an email over at email at autoluxnet.
So for myself, I'm Richie, the host of the
Autolux podcast and owner of the autoluxnet
website.
Ecom Entertainment Group and podbeamcom For
all the greatness that they do to get this
show out into the world, every corner of
(29:12):
this globe.
Strap yourself in for this one fun, wild
ride.
The sports car is going to take you on you.
It's the 3030s and everybody's thinking
about well, not the automobile, because a
lot of people are losing their jobs, a lot
of people are losing their shirts and
families are being torn apart.
Hell, people are even selling their kids at
this point in time.
Yeah, yeah, you can send them through the
mail and everything else, but the
automobile was actually starting to
transition by the late 20s.
We started seeing that, well, some of us
(00:23):
only like to go somewhere with one other
person.
We wanted some leisure time and we wanted
to do a little more fast and a little bit
more nimble than the standard automobiles
that people gave us.
We wanted to have fun and that fun
eventually would grow into a brand new
segment of the automobile industry.
But today that fun industry is slowly dying
out as people wait longer to get their
license, don't see a need in a third
(00:45):
vehicle and don't view the automobile as
something fun anymore, thanks to new laws
and regulations on the roads.
Yes, today we're talking about the sports
car market, where it came from, where it
was and what may happen to it in its future.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the auto looks podcast.
I am your host, as always, the doctor to
the automotive industry, mr everett j,
coming to you from our host website at
autoluxnet.
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.
Car companies from around the globe all
available on one website that is autoluxnet.
(01:29):
The Autolux Podcast is brought to you by
Ecom Entertainment Group and distributed by
podbeamcom.
If you'd like to get in touch with us, send
us an email over at email at autoluxnet.
So, like I said in the intro, the 1930s it
wasn't really a time you're thinking about
sports cars and individual automobiles.
Well, not everybody in the world, you have
to remember there's still some people that
had money.
(01:49):
Well, outside of north america there are
lots of people with still money and
economies that were still doing good.
During the 1930s we started to see the
introduction of small little boutique
builders building tiny little roadsters for
us to go and have fun with.
Royals over in Europe wanted to go and
cruise because the automobile was now
considered part of their culture.
(02:11):
Everywhere you went, automobile was there
and people didn't want to be chauffeured
around all the time in these big limos or
drive around in standard automobiles.
No, no, no.
They wanted to go out and have fun, and one
country in particular really liked the idea
of this, and with a lot of royals and a lot
of dukes and duchesses and everyone else,
(02:31):
they had a market for tiny little sports
cars.
Companies like Riley, alfa Romeo and MG
Morris Garage started building these tiny
little sports cars for the upper class.
Now we all know what happened.
By the end of the 1930s and into the 40s,
all hell broke loose over in Europe and as
the Allies came in from countries like
(02:52):
Canada, australia, new Zealand, hell, even
parts of South America, and eventually,
near the end of the war, after the
Americans got bombed horribly in Pearl
Harbor, they decided to finally join the
war effort.
Now they came in with a big bang, they made
a big bang and then they claimed they, you
know, won it all for everyone, when really
you showed up at the last minute, did a big
blowout show and then walked away from it.
(03:14):
But while they were over in Europe they
started noticing these small little sports
cars, mgs especially.
They found them incredible.
Back in America nobody had these things.
Sure, we had the little Ford Model T
Roadster, but we didn't have something like
a little MG J2 midget or an N-Type or, hell,
even the MGP-Type.
These were fun little cars to go scoot
(03:35):
around the back country in, and as they saw
these, they started realizing these are
great, and some of them stayed in the
European countries.
They utilized these little vehicles to get
in and around and a lot of them started
having them shipped home If they could.
You have to remember, not every single
buddy could afford to send them home, so
they put them on the boats and they shipped
them back.
And, as we all know, after listening to our
podcast about the Volkswagen Beetle, the
(03:57):
Allies gained access to the Volkswagen
machine shop and with that, volkswagen
itself learned how to make these small,
tiny little cars.
Well, the allies at that time America,
canada, australia, great Britain, france,
poland, finland we were all in it to help.
And by helping build back the Volkswagen
manufacturing plant, we realized that small
(04:19):
little vehicles like this, especially ones
that could be fun on back roads, are
something that people were looking at
extensively.
Oh yeah, and the little MGs started making
their way back to America, at that point in
time the biggest single automotive market
in the world.
Even to this day, the United States is
still one of the top automotive markets in
(04:39):
the world, fighting it out every single
year with China, kind of back and forth in
hell.
India is slowly moving in there and once
they get their foot in the door and more
people into the middle class, trust me,
they're coming after that first place
position as well.
But as of today, some of those markets
don't have sports cars.
What happened, like?
Why did we lose our love affair with sports
cars started coming out in the 1930s and by
(05:02):
thes, when all these war heroes were coming
home and they weren't able to afford to
bring these vehicles back with them, they
started demanding them from the car
companies around us.
Hell, by the 1950s we had the Chevrolet
Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird.
They were giving us what we saw on the
other side of the world.
Unfortunately, they came with a lot bigger
power plants than the ones we had on the
(05:23):
other side of the planet and they were
bigger than what we had, because in America,
you know, bigger is always better.
Not necessarily.
You've had some great small car companies
which you really didn't jump on the
bandwagon with.
Come on, really.
But the little MGs came back and more
people wanted them and they wanted to have
fun.
Well, mg found a brand new market they
could sell in bringing the company up.
(05:43):
Alfa Romeo started coming in with their
tiny little spiders and by the mid to late
50s the sports car or essentially in
America, the roadster rivals.
The British invasion of the roadsters
started taking over American roads.
These sports cars were everywhere.
Everyone wanted them, people were able to
afford them, jobs were everywhere and
(06:04):
people were able to afford having a small
fun car Not every single person out there,
but still a lot of people.
So they all wanted these small little
sports cars.
They wanted to have fun.
But eventually these would become
Americanized.
On this side of the planet, on the other
side of the world, in Japan, small little
roadsters were coming out, same with in
Great Britain, the European marketplaces,
(06:24):
these miniature roadsters and small little
sports cars that were amazingly fun on back
roads.
And with the European marketplace and even
Asian marketplaces having tight roads that
have been around for thousands of years, we
needed to fit these vehicles on them.
Something like a Corvette or a Thunderbird
was out of the question.
Even today, if you listen to that, you know
this whole tariff thing between Great
(06:45):
Britain and America kind of worked out, as
American vehicles won't be taxed in
European marketplaces but Europeans will be.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
We need to sell more American cars in
Europe.
You have to look at it at this standpoint.
Australia is a big market that the
Americans could go after.
They like big vehicles, european
marketplace, skinny little roads, towns
that have been around for over a thousand
(07:05):
years, with tiny little cobblestone
parkways.
You ever wonder why the Fiat 500 was so big
in those marketplaces, why something like
the Alfa Romeo Spyder came from those
markets.
In North America we look at these small
little cars and we don't think anything of
them.
And that became a problem later on.
The British invasion happened during the
1950s and into the 60s.
By the 1970s companies like Triumph and MG
(07:27):
were starting to falter as the Americans
were making waves with their muscle cars
and the muscle car domination in the
marketplace was taking fold.
By the late 60s and into the early 70s, big
burly American power is what that market
wanted.
These tiny little roadsters they didn't
want.
So the sports car market started to retract.
But then, bam, middle of the 70s, we get
(07:49):
hit with the oil embargo.
Gas starts drying up, america's running out
and we need to find a new suitable place to
get gasoline.
We eventually make our way into the Middle
East and with it we get cheaper oil, we get
the oil we need to power our vehicles.
And with that, well, let's just say the end
of the big block era has come about.
(08:11):
Why the big American power and these big
muscle cars start dying out in the 70s?
Well, the gas crisis hit them Big gas
guzzling V8s.
Well, leaded fuel was a big thing.
Catalytic converters didn't come in.
But the Europeans and Japanese already
realized they had a limited amount of fuel,
so they needed to use it wisely.
These big motors couldn't fit on their big
(08:32):
streets.
Insurance premiums were higher for big
motors in a lot of their select markets.
Why do you think the Corvette never really
took off in European marketplaces or Asian
marketplaces?
That big block V8 is a gas peg and it's
select markets in the world.
You're taxed on the size of your engine.
So having a tiny little four-cylinder you
could beef that horsepower up to over 500
(08:55):
in no problem still qualifies for your
four-cylinder insurance.
But that big block V8 didn't matter if it
only had 150 horsepower underneath the hood.
But the big block V8 didn't matter if it
only had 150 horsepower underneath the hood.
You were getting taxed Gas guzzling
insurance rates.
So those big sports cars from America were
not making it through.
The small little sports cars of the
European and Asian marketplaces were making
their way into the world and as people were
(09:18):
still demanding these amazing little sports
cars, the markets started to rebound by the
late 70s and into the 80s.
We start getting the second coming of the
sports car market with the gas embargo,
brand new safety features and now specific
fuel consumption ratings for vehicles being
mandatory Even in America.
(09:39):
These small little sports cars from Asian
and European marketplaces were going to
have a second coming.
Sure, the Triumph TR7 was an ugly looking
little sports car, but it was still cheaper
on gas than your Corvette or your Mustang
Hell.
Even by this time the Mustang had moved on
to the Pinto platform, a smaller platform,
gone back to its roots of being a small
sports car and less of a power-hungry
(10:01):
muscle car.
They still had the power-hungry Mustang II
with the Cobra Jet engine in it, but it was
still built off a Pinto platform.
And with that, ford released a
four-cylinder in the Mustang.
But the four-cylinder, you may think.
Well, that's horrible.
You can't do that to the Mustang, it's
going to kill its name off.
At this point in time, the gas crisis set
in and not everybody being able to afford
(10:23):
those big block V8s and filling them up.
People were looking at economy entries into
the sports car game.
Where Ford hadn't done this, the Mustang
could have dissolved from the marketplace
completely.
Hell, the Camaro and Firebird managed to
hold on, but even still dropping to
six-cylinder engines as entry-level models
was unheard of only a few years previous to
(10:43):
that, dodge held out way too long and
eventually killed themselves.
By having too many big, burly engines at a
time when people started demanding smaller
engines nearly bankrupt them.
Eventually they came back with some smaller
engines and built themselves back up, and
with that a partnership with another
Japanese counterpart, mitsubishi, brought
(11:04):
them a brand new formation of sports cars
to the American marketplace.
Sports cars were back Late 70s.
People started seeing them as an added
vehicle.
They're the ones that you wanted to get
when you graduated high school.
You know the rich kids can go out and buy
the big V8s, but we had to settle for the
little four-cylinder Mustangs.
We still got a Mustang, but what did that
(11:24):
do to us?
We couldn't afford to outright buy the big
block V8 right out of the gate.
What we started doing is tinkering with the
smaller engines.
They were more fuel efficient, which means
we saved money on gas.
So that money we were saving on gas we
decided to utilize that to add a little bit
more power to our vehicles.
This helped give birth to the craze of the
(11:46):
four-cylinder sports car generation In the
1980s.
Two-doors were all in, coupes were
everywhere.
Hell, brand new marketplaces were coming
out the mini sports market, japanese and
even European marketplaces, the key car
market that already existed before.
But now in North America we were starting
to get into this.
Vehicles like the original MR2 and Nissan
(12:06):
Pulsar, hell, even Hyundai with its
original S Coupe and Geostorm were
essentially mini sports cars.
They were for those entry-level people who
wanted the look of a sports car but didn't
have the money to afford a full-blown one.
From that we moved into what we called the
sports coupe marketplace.
You're starting to get into things like the
(12:27):
original Opel GTs, even the Plymouth
Turismo and the rebirth of the Dodge
Charger in the late 70s and early 80s.
It wasn't a sports car, it was a sports car
coupe.
It was more of a coupe profile with a
sports car image embraced upon it.
Getting things like a 40XP or even an
Nissan Silvia was cool.
You had a cool car, but with that you
(12:50):
needed something more and, like we said,
people started adding more power to them,
realizing they could get more power out of
these cars.
But it's the 80s.
People who are coming back still want those
big, burly V8s.
They want the muscle cars.
So the sports car market is there to get
people through the door, because everybody
wants a two-door.
You have to remember the Oldsmobile Delta
(13:11):
88.
They had a two-door variation of it.
Like, come on, this thing is a beast.
And there was a two-door model of it.
Yeah, we get it, it's not a sports car,
it's a coupe.
But two doors were all the rage in the 80s
and into the early 90s.
Every manufacturer had at least four
variations of sports cars.
You have to remember toyota had the paseo,
the mr2, the celica and then the supra hell,
(13:32):
even honda.
They had the crx, the del sols and then the
preludes preludes, a sports coupe, because
you have the honda accord coupe and the
honda civic coupe.
The prelude may have been built off their
platform, but it was dedicated as a
two-door with a coupe.
Look so it's a sports coupe.
These vehicles were coming out and giving
birth to a brand new sports car generation.
(13:53):
Unfortunately, it would take until the late
90s before all the great vehicles of that
time were finally recognized for how
amazing they are.
Take Take a look today for a 1986 to 1989
Toyota Corolla GTS in North America.
The AE86s, the Trenos you know from that
amazing show, initial D.
When I was in college you could pick one of
(14:14):
those things up for like less than $1,500
anywhere Today.
Looking at them, you're lucky if you could
find one under $10,000 because there's so
limited amount of them.
These sports cars from that generation were
big People at them.
You're lucky if you can find one under
$10,000 because there's so limited amount
of them.
These sports cars from that generation were
big.
People loved them.
But they love them now.
They didn't love them then.
People bought them, drove them as their
first vehicles until they can afford that
Camaro, that V8 Mustang, until they can get
(14:36):
the big, powerful cars.
And from there they slowly moved up the
food chain getting Supras, getting 300ZXs.
They wanted those fast touring cars.
They didn't want those little chintzy
sports cars that got us through the door.
The mini sports, the sports coupes and the
sports cars.
They started disappearing.
But in 1989, one company showed us that
(14:57):
there are still a market for entry-level
mini sports cars.
When the Mazda Miata came out first
generation blew up on the scene.
Everybody loved them and everybody wanted
them.
This was a mini roadster that brought back
the feeling of the MG in the 1950s, when we
all fell in love with it.
This was it.
The Miata was going to take us through.
(15:18):
But the Miata essentially was an
entry-level sports car, because from the
Miata you went to the MX-3, the Presidia
right, then you went to the MX-6.
Then you moved up to the RX-7s.
So you had to make your way up Nissan with
its Pulsar, its Silvias, or, in North
America, our 240SXs.
Hell, they had the 180SX for quite a while
(15:40):
and then you moved up to the 300ZX.
If you lived in European marketplaces, then
you would finally get to the top tier and
get your GTR or Nissan Skylines.
We didn't get that in North America, but we
got these tiny little sports cars.
Toyota gave us a two-door sport coupe
version of the Corolla called the Corolla
GTS, and I remember seeing these things at
kids and thinking they're really cool, like
(16:02):
it's a Corolla, one of those boring cars on
the road, and now they've given it pop-up
headlights, a sport profile and it's got an
entry-level price that anybody can get into.
It was it.
It's a car that should have sold in mass
quantity, just like the Hyundai S Coupe,
just like the 240s.
People should have been buying them in
droves, but nobody knew that these vehicles
(16:24):
were there because the market was saturated
with so many different products from so
many different companies.
And then it's like somebody just pulled the
rug right out from underneath the sports
car industry.
The Fast and the Furious blew up the
aftermarket scene, but one little key
feature that they put in the first movie
was a changeover from sports cars to sports
sedans.
That Nissan Maxima that was in the original
(16:45):
movie was showcasing to us where we were
going.
It showcased to us that we can make these
sedans just as cool as driving the sports
cars.
And as people started realizing that four
doors could be just as cool as two doors,
we didn't have to go out and buy a two-door
car.
We didn't have to cram our friends into the
back of our vehicle just so we had
something that was cool.
Two doors were out.
(17:05):
We wanted four doors, we wanted everybody
to be comfortable and we wanted to look
good.
You got Grand Ams being customized.
You got Accords being customized, accord
wagons, honda Civic, four doors.
Those Nissan Maximas, dodge had the Neon,
(17:27):
how people were doing Cavaliers, even
though they came with a two-door option,
the more people customized, they still had
the four-door one.
People were willing to do the Ford Focus.
The ZX3s were cool Everybody wanted those
but they also had the ZX5s.
Mazda gave us the Protégé 5.
They had the MPS Mazda Protégé Four doors.
Sure, the Miata still kicked around, but
the MX-6 and MX-3 were gone and the RX-7
was about to kick the bucket.
By the time the Fast and Furious movie came
out, the Supra that starred in that movie
was on its way out.
(17:48):
A higher price and not a lot of kids really
wanting them or noticing how powerful they
really were.
Until that movie came out, the coffin was
already being closed.
Sports cars were being covered up.
The movie built a major aftermarket
industry and built the sports car market
back up at a time that nobody was building
sports cars.
(18:09):
And with that we all changed over and
started doing sedans, minivans, wagons,
hell.
We brought the mini trucking market back,
but we started doing a full-size and quad
cabs.
There weren't a lot of two-door products
anymore.
If you're a kid growing up between the
1960s all the way up to the late 90s, if
you were cool in high school kind of rhymes,
(18:30):
kind of funny you had a two-door vehicle,
two-door truck, two-door coupe, two-door
sports car, two-door grand tourer, hell.
Ferraris were two-door, lamborghinis were
two-door, porsche was two-door.
Today we got four-door Porsches, four-door
Lamborghinis, hell, even a four-door
Ferrari.
Now Everything has moved into these ease
and accessibility, and the sports car
(18:50):
market has literally taken a kick to the
nuts.
A few years ago, one company, after its
purchase from General Motors of Fuji
Industrial, saw that people needed sports
cars.
There wasn't a high demand for them, but
people were lapping up the GTRs and the
Nissan Zs.
They were demanding that the Supra came
(19:11):
back, but these people couldn't afford them.
So Toyota took a look at the market and
said what if we collaborated with our brand
new partner, subaru, and built a car
similar to that original Corolla GTS, the
Trueno, we make the AE86 yet again.
And if you want to know more about this, we
actually did a podcast about the 86, from
the Corolla 86 to the actual Toyota GT 86.
(19:35):
People wanted these.
There wasn't a huge market for it, you got
to remember.
The Miata was still one of the only small
sports cars holding on to that market.
General Motors had killed off everything it
had.
There was no more Pontiac, no more Saturn,
so the Sky and Solstice were gone.
You want a sports car in their marketplace.
You got a six-cylinder Camaro or you went
to a Corvette Ford.
(19:56):
You had a Mustang Dodge.
You can get a six-cylinder Challenger Honda.
You might be able to find yourself a
two-door Civic Coupe, nissan GT-R or Zed.
They still had two.
They had one in the high-volume bracket and
one in the mid-tier MG.
Well, now they're part of Shanghai
Automotive Group and they're kicking it in
select markets, but not back in the North
American marketplace.
(20:17):
Our market is void of sports cars, but
Toyota and Subaru's collaboration for the
GT and the BRZ and when it originally came
out there was no Toyota GT in our
marketplace.
It wasn't a global scale, but in the
American marketplace we had the Scion FR-S.
If you didn't know, this Scion gave birth
to the original sports cars for the Toyota
(20:38):
Motor Group in the 21st century.
We lost the Celica, we lost the MR2.
We lost the Supra, but the 86 was here to
save the day.
And these sports cars are giving us a
comeback Now into their second generation.
They're showing the world that sports cars
can hang on to that lifeline and give us
what we really want as people of my
(20:58):
generation I don't like to say it the
millennials I'm right at the cusp of
millennials and Generation X but we're
starting to get to that point in our life
where we can afford our house, we can
afford our two vehicles and we're now
thinking of something fun for the weekends.
We're looking at what our parents had.
(21:22):
If we live in the city, we really can't use
a snow machine, quad or a boat, so we're
looking at these fun little sports cars.
Hell, myself, I got myself a little stick
shift back in the day and I've just kept it,
no matter how crappy or how many times
people make fun of me for what it is.
I keep it around because it's a five speed,
which are very hard to find these days, and
even though it's a crappy four-door wagon,
it's still fun to throw around.
(21:43):
But in all in all, I wanted a two-door
sports car.
I had to settle, unfortunately, but it
wasn't really until a couple of years ago
that I was able to afford to get something
cooler.
But now I'm kind of looking at rebuilding
the Mustang.
Sorry, I'm getting to that point where I'm
starting to look at that big, burly V8.
But the sports car marketplace is starting
to rebound slightly and now, with the entry
of electric vehicles and the price of
electric vehicles starting to come down,
people are starting to see that maybe in
(22:06):
select areas we can get a third vehicle.
Covid's rush to the suburbs, which actually
is a podcast if you want to listen to how
COVID kind of rushed us all out to the
suburbs and this all intertwines helped us
see that there's more to life than work,
video games, television, our family and
that's about it and going on vacation.
We want more in life and realizing that
(22:27):
autonomous vehicles are just around the
corner, we need something fun, we need
something fast, we need to enjoy life one
last time, even though in my home province
of material they've created what they call
the 50 over law, the stunt driving law,
thanks to some stupid kids that killed a
cop's kid near my in my neck of the woods.
Yeah, kids are assholes, but there are
(22:47):
still areas we can have fun in.
We may not be able to have fun on the
streets like we did way back in the 80s and
90s.
That's essentially what killed the sports
car industry.
More government rules cracking down on
street racing killed the sports car market
Because by having a two-door in the
mid-2000 years you were a target for the
police.
They automatically assumed you were a
street racer and for a lot of us, we
(23:09):
decided to get out of that marketplace.
The truck market started taking off and
then we started customizing sedans,
something that didn't look amazing.
We created sleeper vehicles, some of the
most random things sedans, wagons, minivans.
Then came an altering moment.
It would come from something you didn't
expect the cross track.
Our love affair with crossover utility
(23:31):
vehicles in the aftermarket industry blew
up Fast and Furious.
7 showed us a four-wheel drive system added
to a Camaro and a Charger.
That's pretty cool.
Then a video game called the Crew showed us
building sports cars to go off-road could
be more fun.
Well, a lot of us have kind of jumped on
the bandwagon of the new 4x4 marketplace
(23:51):
and crossover utilities.
We had to get off the streets because the
cops are clamping down on us, but they
don't clamp down on us on back roads in the
middle of the bush because there's no one
else out there.
I get it.
If you live in a major city, this is a
problem for you.
My neck of the woods not really, because
there's a lot of these roads around.
So a lot of us started selling these
vehicles off.
We couldn't have a two-door sports car, but
(24:12):
the market is starting to understand that
maybe.
Maybe the issue is that we need an active
lifestyle vehicle built into a sports car.
The active sports car market.
We've all seen it before People pouring
four-wheel drive Blazers, you know,
powertrain systems underneath a Chevette
okay, building these things way back in the
80s and 90s Hell, even all the way back as
(24:33):
far as the 60s and 70s, people have done
this.
Off-road sports cars, things from the rally
world like the Lancia Stratos and the Audi
Quattro.
That is the key to the sports car market of
the future.
We get it.
The electric vehicle industry and companies
like Alpha Motors building their two-door
sports coupe have given way to us and shown
us that we can get back into this world by
(24:56):
bringing down the price of batteries.
We can enter it with the standard sports
coupe marketplace yet again for young kids
out of high school and people looking for
just something quick, easy and fun to drive
back and forth to work.
But the active sports car market is what
really can save the evolution of the sports
car industry.
Products like the Lamborghini Huracan
Strato or the Porsche Dakar, hell, even the
(25:18):
Ferrari Prius.
It may be four doors, but if you make a
two-door cross-checking version of it, that
would be it these off-road cool sports cars,
because the off-road market is one last
untapped world for the sports car industry.
We've been kicked in the nuts so heavily
over the past decade that the sports car
(25:38):
revolution needs to come back.
It needs to give us something we really,
really desire An ability to go anywhere as
fast as we want, and off-road is where we
gotta go.
So for the sports cars, I'm sorry to say,
but our time on-road may be nearing its end.
Vehicles like the GT86 and the BRZ may keep
it together Now, with Honda bringing back
the Prelude and Nissan reconsidering
bringing the Silvia back Hell.
(26:00):
Even Toyota working on a brand new Celica
with either electric or hybrid powertrain
is showing us that sports cars can make a
return, and for that we love it.
We would love to go back to our days of the
1980s and 90s, when sports cars were
everywhere.
Where you went to your local high school
and there was tons of them.
All over the place, there were tiny little
paseos sitting right next to a big block v8,
(26:23):
mustang.
I want all those people to have fun and
enjoy life, because after high school life
gets serious.
Without having that sports car at a young
age, you don't understand how much fun
you're missing out of in the real world.
I've tried to explain that to my
father-in-law so many times.
I said you never had fun as a kid.
Well, yeah, I did.
No, you didn't.
Literally, having a fun vehicle when you're
younger really opens your eyes to the world.
(26:43):
You see it as an exciting place when you
look at an automobile to get from point A
to point B and that's it, and only ever
drive boring automobiles.
The fun outside your doors.
Yes, I could be one to say that I never
owned a sports car in my life.
I've had the joy of being in them, I've had
the joy of being around them, but not
actually own one.
I've tried to create my own from my own,
shooting big brake wagon Hell, even my
(27:05):
suicide doors on my brain.
It's a coma because it's a club cab, not a
quad.
But even still I yearn for that fun of the
two doors.
Closing the door of my 1970 Mustang,
turning the key and hearing that big, burly
V8 grumble underneath me.
It's an amazing feeling that I look forward
to, but not as amazing as the one I missed
out on when I didn't buy a 1986 Corolla
(27:26):
Notchback version the old GTS Notchback for
$400 when I was in college and I had the
money To this very day.
I kicked myself in the nuts for not doing
that, because that was a sports car that I
would have loved to have had and I missed
out on so much fun.
But not having that early on in my life
that's essentially part of the midlife
crisis the people who never did enjoy the
(27:47):
life of the sports car.
And with that, we need more CEOs like
Toyota has and even Nissan now, seeing that
sports cars and fun needs to be rejuvenated
back into the automobile industry to give
us the pleasure of driving and maybe with
that, the rise of the sports car industry
once again.
So if you like this podcast, please like,
(28:08):
share or comment about it on any major
social feed or streaming sites that you
found the Autolux podcast on.
Like us, share us, comment about us.
Us send us out to your friends, your family,
your well-wishers, your boss, you know,
co-workers, whatever, we don't care.
Get the word out about auto looksnet and
get the word out about the auto looks
podcast.
Like us, share us, follow us.
Find out more of the podcasts we've talked
(28:29):
about.
Go back and listen to some of the ones we
talked about in this podcast.
You know our podcast about the gt86, or
even COVID's rush to the suburbs Hell, the
return of the two and a half car driveway.
There's some great stories out there that
you need to listen to, about this industry
and how it can come back to life once again,
all available from one place the autoluxnet
website and the Autolux podcast.
(28:51):
The Autolux podcast is brought to you by
Ecom Entertainment Group and distributed by
podbeamcom.
If you'd like to get in touch with us, send
us an email over at email at autoluxnet.
So for myself, I'm Richie, the host of the
Autolux podcast and owner of the autoluxnet
website.
Ecom Entertainment Group and podbeamcom For
all the greatness that they do to get this
show out into the world, every corner of
(29:12):
this globe.
Strap yourself in for this one fun, wild
ride.
The sports car is going to take you on you.
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