In
a March, 1956 Road & Track article
Alan Beck, wrote perhaps the best contemporary explanation of what exactly was this
unpractical thing called a sports car:
A
sports car is a fast-moving, slow-drifting, road loving heap of mechanistic
perfection that will go faster, stop quicker, last longer, outgun, out run, and
out fun any other pile of iron ever bolted together in this, or any other grand
old country. It is like a smooth, well-built, brown-eyed blond who moves in the
society of Hollywood, Manhattan, London, Paris, or Rome, but prefers stupid old
you from Keokuk, Iowa….
A sports car is a flash in the rainy
night, a creature with a mind and a will of its own….
A sports car is the twin jabs of the
downshift at 50 miles an hour as the 90 degree corner comes up without any
tire-screaming, gravel throwing slide into the shoulder. It is the rock-steady
whine of 5000 rpm on the long straight-away, the big needle touching the magic
100 figure on the circular black dial. It is the whoosh that went by you on the
lonely back road. It is what gives that heart-in-the mouth sensation as you
sail as you sail down the long hill into Watkins Glen for race week and the
sense the magic ahead….
A sports car expects and deserves
the pampering of a spoiled and expensive wife….
It is a barky exhaust, the long
sweep of a clean fender, an honesty of line, a functional hunk of power
dictated by engineers instead of housewives….
Sports cars are a happy and proud
breed – like the Scotch tartans, French fleur-de-lis. And British crests, but
wjen you acquire one, don’t expect understanding, credit, appreciation, or
admiration. To the world, a sports car will ever evoke: “What do you want that thing
for? It’s not practical.” And you can’t
answer – because the answer is out there in the sunset of a winter’s day on the
wide open road, the wind stinging past your upturned mackinaw, the contented
purr of the big engine turning into a whine, and the needle of the rev counter
creeping up into the red.
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