The argument for supercars
Supercars are not a means of getting from A to B. No, supercars take you somewhere else entirely. They excite the emotions with their dramatic, furturistic shapes, their fabulous engines and their fantastic performance. ‘What’s the point? When will you ever be able to use such massive performance?’ wail the kill-joys. Never, perhaps. But it’s the potential that’s tantalising, that fires the imagination, that inspires.

Few people who buy Range Rovers will ever drive them off-road but still they buy them because of their supreme abilities. Similarly, most people who buy supercars will never drive them at or even near their full potential, but they take pleasure from knowing they’re at the wheel of one of the world’s fastest cars.

The environmental impact of supercars is not an issue, either. Yes, these extravagent two-seaters (three if you’re lucky) are so packed full of huge, thirsty engines and impossibly low-snouted that they barely have space for a toothbrush. But as Gordon Murray once pointed out, ‘Supercars are built in such small numbers and cover such low mileages in a year that their impact on the CO2 problem is too small to even measure.’ You can also add that supercars rarely go to the scrapyard, so that their whole-life environmental impact is lower than that of any other type of car. As for pedestrian impact legislation, the chances of being run down by a supercar must be minimal, partly because they’re so rare and partly because you’d surely hear one coming.

Then there’s the positive impact the supercar has on the entire automotive world. Tyre and suspension design, aerodynamics, materials and many more technologies are driven forward by supercars. They are to the car world what jet fighters are to aerospace – they attract some of the brightest and most enthusiastic engineers to the business, a draw of talent that benefits the whole industry and therefore all cars. 

You might argue that it’s motorsport that advances many automotive technologies and this is true, but making a component that will last just a few races or even a season on the race-track is quite different to making that same component serviceable for the road. Supercars are often the bridge between track and road, their vast price allowing new technologies to be developed for long-term use in many different environments. A good example of this is carbon/ceramic brakes, which required much work to make them effective at low disc temperatures and in damp conditions. Their use on supercars has increased steadily and it has recently been announced that Brembo and the SGL Group are planning to put them into mass production for regular performance cars.  

Yet while the supercar can claim responsibility for advancing car technology, it’s perhaps its unquantifiable impact that is more important. Loris Bicocchi has been key in the development and dynamics of many of the world’s greatest supercars, including the Bugatti Veyron, Pagani Zonda and Koenigsegg CCX. He’s deeply worried about the threat legislation holds for the supercar, should it be rolled out in a blanket fashion. ‘This is a nightmare. Can you imagine our life without supercars, with all the normal small cars the same? For me, everything would become grey. The supercar, it’s like the orchid, not a common flower. If I see one I will stop and spend a few minutes to see how nature can create such beauty. It’s amazing. In car terms, the supercar is the orchid.

‘I still think they can’t stop the supercar. There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world who live for supercars.’

evo contributor Simon George has covered 120,000 miles in his orange Murciélago in less than five years and recently calculated that through his driving experience company, Sixth Gear, a staggering 1778 people had driven it. Do people love supercars? ‘I think so,’ he says. ‘I always get the thumbs up driving a Lamborghini.’ He’s seen a change in the last 18 months as the recession has bitten. ‘Most people knew they were probably never going to own a supercar, but they don’t like to know it for sure,’ he says. But, he adds, as a consequence his business has got even busier.
No question, supercars are good for the soul. They’re precious because they inspire, captivate and entertain, at negligible cost to the environment. The world really would be a poorer place without them. John Barker

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