Sports, Touring, Grand Touring

[Bruce Nunnally]

I was reading another definition of WHAT a sports car is the other day, and it got me to thinking about these categories of cars.

A sports car I *think* should be reserved for a car that is what I would call a track car. This definition gets really hazzy when you look across time, as some modern economy cars are more capable than some historical sports cars. However, in general a sports car should be compromised toward handling, acceleration, and speed, in that order.

A muscle car is all about acceleration, with compromised handling and perhaps top speed.

A Boulevard Cruiser is a subcategory of Sports Car; it is a car that could on paper be a sports car, but it does not have the power needed, OR is otherwise compromised toward comfort rather than speed.

A Touring car is about long road trips. So it should be quiet, comfortable to drive all day, fast and get reasonable mileage OR be REALLY fun to drive (player's choice).

A Grand Touring car is an expensive touring car, with more power, more comfort or higher quality appointments, although perhaps less economical.

A GT car was meant to mean grand touring, but tends to be an suffix incorrectly added to an economy car in an attempt to give it some pizzaz.

I would say the CTS-V is a sports car. It is clearly tilted toward track tuning, manual gear box, max power, max cornering.

The XLR and XLR-V both seem setup as boulevard cruisers.

The STS-V I think is just too heavy to be a sports car, and fits as a Grand Touring car.

The DTS, STS, and CTS I would say fit as Touring Cars.

Other definitions and/or opinions?

[556393]

I guess you have never driven a XLR or A XLR-V. Believe me, they have speed and acceleration.

[Bruce Nunnally]

I have driven an XLR, but not a V. Yes, they are harder to classify. The corvette chassis, good power in the XLR, and excellent power in the XLR-V.

But certainly the XLR is more compromised toward comfort/luxury than say the Corvette which is what makes it a hard call. The XLR does NOT seem

to be designed as a track car. Would you argue that one or both are sports cars vs touring cars?

How do you feel the XLR ranks as a long distance traveller?

[556393]

I put about 1400 miles on my XLR in 4 days on the road and the car handled it very well. Its a great road car. I didn`t travel on any inter-state freeways only twp lane state or county roads. The ride was smooth, rougher than my Eldorado but, nice just the same. You were not bounced and jiggled around as I hear the Vette will do to you. When I got to some fun parts of the roads, I would put the transmission into manual mode, downshift and power very nicely thru the curves. Somewhere around 47 mph in 1st, 75 or so in 2nd and 107 in 3rd. Very smooth, very quick and a lot of fun. Yes its way too refined to be called a track car but, unless you are going to race every time you drive the car... this is the one to drive. In time enough people will drive this car a realized what a great job Cadillac in designing the XLR. There are only a handful of cars you will pass on the road that will beat you in acceleration and handling. None that look as nice. Oh, yea I got between 25.5 and 28 mpg for those 1400 miles. Just a Cadillac junkie.

[Bruce Nunnally]

Glad to hear you are enjoying the XLR so well. Sounds like a great car.

I guess I have been neutral on the sportiness of the XLR because it has "only" 320hp when the current Corvettes had 400hp. That's probably not fair; judged on its own it certainly makes good time on the road, has a very capable chassis, and more than adequate power.

[Cadillac Jim]

There is a lot of range in the concept of a sports car. It's not hard to find people who will say that true sports car must

• Be inexpensive enough for accessibility by the masses.
• Perform well at the track with no modifications.
• Seat no more than two people.
• Be a roadster type automobile.
• Have a standard shift transmission.
• Have a floor-mounted shifter.
• Be classified by the SCCA (or another sanctioning body).
• Be manufactured in Europe, or more specifically, Britain or Italy, or possibly Porsche.
• Etc.

The list can be extended indefinitely, and self-contradictions become more evident as the list goes on. Cars like and Porsche with tiptronic shifting don't have a floor shift but are undeniably sports cars, for example. The Nissan Fairlady of the 1950's and 1960's was similar to the MGA and MGB, but far more reliable, and evolved into the 240Z in the late 1960's as MG ran out of vision. The 1955-1956 Thunderbirds were arguably not sports cars because of their sedan-like suspensions and brakes, fragile engines, and the rarity of manual transmissions, and Ford eventually had a press release in which they stated that the Thunderbird was NOT a sports car. But, the 1953-1962 Corvette was never seriously challenged as a sports car, and the 1953-1955 models used a Powerglide transmission, and it shared suspension parts with the 1949-1954 Chevrolet sedan. The Chaparral Chevrolet-based open class racing car used a Powerglide transmission (on an aluminum 495 cid), which survives today as one of the favored transmissions for drag racing and circle track racing.

In a test drive of a Syclone in 1991, Car and Driver said that a sports car should be primarily a street car with "Reebok-like agility" that is reasonably track-ready, and said that the Syclone qualifies under that definition. The Syclone was produced primarily as a 1991 model of the GMC Sonoma with special chassis and a turbochared 4.3 l V6. If accepted as such, this is probably the only sports car ever made that could comfortably haul a piano, albeit not while being at all competitive on the track.

Many sports cars are not at all ready for the track without chassis and other modifications, particularly the brakes. Any Corvette in good overall condition can take a few laps at Lime Rock without problems, except that drum brake modes prior to 1965 which would need metallic linings to avoid really serious fade in the turns at the end of the straight, but any Z car and most others will need aftermarket brakes and possibly cooling, and some will need aftermarket oil coolers.

[Bruce Nunnally]

I agree.

With sedans such as the CTS-V or BMW M3 putting up track lap times shorter than many 2-seaters, the number of seats seem beside the point. Certainly lighter = quicker in all cases, but it is not always clear that 2 seats provide a lot of weight advantage over 4 seat sedans.

Realizing that hardtop variants of the same car tend to be quicker/faster than convertibles due to the weight savings -- convertibles need more chassis reinforcement -- meant that compromsing toward performance involved a hardtop.

Paddle shifters and dual-clutch automatics that offer MORE performance than manual gearboxes in terms of faster gear changes have also certainly muddied the water in terms of which offers more absolute performance.

[Texas Jim]

Howdy all,

Just a quick observation and opinion about "MY" Cadillac.

I have a '06 DTS Performance Sedan. It has 245 x 50 x 18 inch "H" rated tires. Performance tuned algorithm shifting. It has almost 300HP and all the bells and whistles you can get, including Magnaride, Speed Sensitive steering and supension, NAV and Air Conditioned massaging seats for your back.

On a couple of trips, on some days, I have drove it close to 1000 miles a day. One time over 1100 miles in one day. But that was a pretty long day.

One little trip from El Paso back to Ft. Worth, a while back, it averaged 87 mph over a 600+ mile trip and that included 3 pit stops for fuel and potty breaks. Darling wife was with me and she likes to stop pretty often but it kills your average speed.

It will cruise at 100+ all day long with no strain at all. It actually prefers around 90 / 100 but will run quite a bit above that with no strain at all. When crowding it, it hits the speed limiter at 123 while still in 3rd gear. Darn it.

Just my opinion, (and I admit to being biased) but I think the Performance Sedan is pushing the line between Touring and GRAND touring.

There are no other cars that I know of, "IN THIS PRICE RANGE," that can do what a Cadillac Sedan can do in such comfort and style.

[Cadillac Jim]

Once, in my 1966 400 hp 427 cid Corvette, I drove from Durham, NC to Austin, TX, and average 62 mph for the trip, including gas, eating, sleeping, potty stops, and sleeping. I got well over 20 mpg but I don't recall the exact figure. I was towing an MGA.

[Bruce Nunnally]

That may have been the fastest cross-country time for an MGA also.

[Cadillac Jim]

My speed was limited to the steering wheel vibrating visibly under the tonneau cover, which I observed at about 110 mph. Therefore the top sustained speed was 90 mph. Normal mode in expressway on-ramps was an 8-wheel drift (the MG had Pirellis, the Vette had Michelin Xs). Next preference was the Vette with solid grip, the MGA drifiting straight out behind. Third preference was the boring old freight train.

I drove the car occasionally over the summer of 1966 while the owner was out of the country. When he came back, he said that the car was in excellent shape, except that some of the spokes were loose. Since I kept 8 spare wire wheels for him under my house, he had plenty of spares.

He had the engine rebuilt at one point. We used the same machine shop that later built my tricked-out 327 cid Chevrolet V8 form my 1964 station wagon. I had asked them to put in chrome piston rings but when we picked up the motor it had cast iron piston rings. The machine shop guro said that those rings would go 20,000 miles and that "there will be something else wrong with this engine by then." On the way home, my friend said "I think that there's a message there." But, the MGA was a nice, fun car for a long time for my friend.

[WarrenJ]

Someone here (possibly the Guru) once said that if you wanted a heavy V8 coupe you could buy a Mercedes or an Eldorado. My choice is obvious.

The ESC rides a little soft, but it's a boulevard cruiser, so no matter. I'd *really* like to test drive a Magnaride vehicle however.

Surprisingly I get a lot of compliments on the car and it's a flat out pleasure to drive. It's a TOURING car.

My MGB had a Chevy SB, Torqueflite, headers and dual Hemi exhausts. No T or GT about that hell raiser. The SPORT part was keeping all four on the ground and oriented in the general direction of travel. I once won a wager in a Burger King parking lot by getting all four tires off the ground simultaneously. :lol:

Regards,

Warren