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And as the STI is comparable in every performance catagory to sports cars costing far more I would say yes it is a sports car. Good luck finding an is300 or 3 series that can compete with it. Performance is an aspect of luxury but does not make a car a luxury car. All the sedans we are discussing have a blending of luxury/performance.
We've instrumented and tested 10 great cars, microanalyzing the vehicle dynamics of each. We've spent hours at the wheel assessing the nuanced feedback each car transmits to its driver. The logbook notes, interview tapes, and 420 megabytes' worth of objective test data agree: The clear winner is the Michelin-Porsche 911 GT3.
BMW 3-Series Ride Quality. I have a 2008 335i with sports package. The highways I commute on are poorly maintained. The car will throw me an inch or two into the air if I hit a small bump @65MPH. It also follows groves in the road if I don't hold the wheel tightly. Lastly, undulations in the road (to help water runoff) cause the car to vibrate.
June 2001. The Grand Nationals, GNXs, T-Types, and Turbo Ts were American Muscle plain and simple. Once the 3.8 was intercooled AND turbocharged, the 245bhp on tap was incredible. I owned a 1987 Turbo T until 1995. I did quite a bit of work to the engine, computer, exhaust, induction, suspension, and appearance.
But a sports car is a two seater in my book, or a 2x2 coupe at most ala Porsche 911. Sports Coupes / Sedans are for people who want sporting fun, but who have lots of baggage. :-) You can make a case for the sedans and coupes being sports cars as some have sports car like performance, and you find them in racing series.
Oh heck, borrowing engines is par for the course with Brit sports cars. Triumph fours were based on tractor engines and were used in Morgan Plus4s as well as TRs. MG and A-H motors were based on Austin units. Early Bristols and AC-Bristols used a prewar BMW design.
Older cars generally looked better in white, as there was a lot of chrome trim, bumpers, rubber, etc. to break up the field of white. That applies to dark colored cars as well, particularly black ones. I've built a lot of scale models of sports cars and noticed that without a little chrome to frame the design they lose something.
None of those cars you mentioned are "sports cars". They are performance sedans. I really don't see the big deal of Lexus not offering manual tranny for IS350. If they do, it's a big plus, but that wouldn't make the car all of sudden a "sports car". If the LF-A comes without a manual or DSG then you got a case against Lexus.
Still, the M5 is the king of its category. The M3 is up there as tops in its sports coupe category as well, as long as you don't call a 911 a coupe. But, IMO, BMW is way off track when it comes to "sports cars". Too heavy, below average handling, borrowed engines.... The Z3/Z4 were inferior to a $32k Honda S2000 the day they were introduced.
I would like to buy a new luxury car (a sedan, not an SUV). My strong preference is for a car which uses regular gas, as opposed to premium, gas. I have been shopping around and seen a variety of luxury cars, Acura, Infiniti, Cadillac, and Lexus. So far, only the Lexus ES350 uses regular gas. It seems as if luxury cars (almost) all appear to ...