When I was growing up I had plastered posters of the Countach, Testarossa, F40, Stratos and Daytona cars on my bedroom walls, those are my first memories of Super Cars, however, today it has become a difficult proposition to classify a Super Car, because this breed has proliferated to alarming levels. A Super Car is about flowing lines, a low striking stance, guttural racket and exhilarating performance, now how far can a Super Car manufacturer take these parameters forward, not much in my opinion. The cars you see now are nothing but a reflection of past historical achievements.
So then what is a Super Car? In my opinion, it comes with that special aura, a car that is perfect balance between exclusivity, modernity and functional styling, flamboyance, aggressiveness and litheness, super branding, limited production, topnotch performance and technological lead coupled with little or no regard towards factors like passenger comfort, practicality or cost. Therefore, the definition is more objective in its approach, we can safely infer that a Super Car should stand out to supersede the conventional parameters of the common car. The boundary between a Super Car and Luxury Automobile can sometimes seem middlingly blurred.
Top Down: Lamborghini Miura / Ferrari F40 / Zenvo ST1
Super Cars or Exotics today are faster, lighter, safer, cleaner and more efficient than it was in the past, and a Super Car unlike your common automobile push physics to the limit to deliver the ultimate thrill behind the wheel. The first land-speed record was conducted in 1890 by
Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat, or also known as the "Electric Count" using a Jeantaud Duc Electric car achieved a top speed of 39.24 mph (63.15 km/h). The record only stood for a few days before it fell to a slightly faster electric car driven by
Camille Jenatzy. It was
Sir Henry O'Neil de Hane Segrave on 29th March,1927 who was the first racer to hit the 200 miles mark (322 Km) at Daytona Beach in Florida. In 1997 Thrust SSC a British jet-propelled Car driven by
Wing Commander Andy Green became the first vehicle to break the sound barrier (768 mph - 1,236 km/h). Now the 200 mile mark set in 1927 is achieved with relative ease by a everyday road-going Sports Car. But, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport is another beast entirely, it blew the competition away to smithereens with an insane jaw-dropping 431 Km/h scorching acceleration in 2010, and it is still the fastest speed achieved by a production car on Earth till date, aptly aided by a monstrous 1,184 BHP engine. Jeremy Clarkson of the popular British Top Gear Automobile show declared the Veyron "
the greatest car ever made and the greatest car we will ever see in our lifetime". Now, not only are these top-end road machines reaching unprecedented speeds and initial acceleration, they’re also reaching them in less time too.
In early 2013, the American Super Car Hennessey Venom GT broke the record for the quickest dash to 300 km per hour (186 miles), taking just 13.63 seconds to do so. Abundant use of ultra-lightweight chassis and body panels are being developed to keep the overall weight of these cars to a minimum, mainly to increase the car's power to weight ratio, a factor essential to extract maximum power from the engine. All the same, for Super Cars to reach these astounding speeds, it’s not all about sheer power and weight ratios, Super Cars need to be low to the ground for maximum traction, as poor road grip makes for dangerous handling and it also reduces acceleration. They also need to be very aerodynamic in design with optimized drag coefficient, to enable the car to slip through air with minimal resistance. This is achieved by using sophisticated software technology to reach such exacting figures both with the bodywork and the chassis, to manage and adjust air pressure around the car during its speed regime. Super Cars also enjoy much higher revolution limits and dual clutch gearboxes installed in some high-end models selects the next gear in advance to ensure minimum loss of power. To overcome obstacles, high end technology is applied to nearly all areas of a Super Car's construction, and innovations and ingenuity are the buzz words today. A new trend is catching up with this industry, some of them use hybrid technology or run entirely on zero fuel, to bring down both fuel consumption and carbon footprint. The world of Super Cars has never been more sophisticated, rewarding and exciting as it is now and it is truly going to be even more exciting in the days to come.
Hennessey Venom GT
WHAT MAKES A SUPER CAR?