Is Your Car a Sports Car?

How many Doors Does Your Mustang Have?

You are lucky, or maybe just smart. Your Mustang might be both a sports car and a muscle car and how many cars can you say that about? In the comment section of a different forum, one of the members argued that four-door cars are more rigid—that a longer structure with four huge holes in it is less flexible than a shorter structure with only two somewhat larger holes in it—because of the extra hoop. First of all, nope. Second, rollcages tend to firm up race cars anyway. Another forum member argued that Mitsubishi Evos and Subaru Imprezas were sports cars because they won races. Well, pickup trucks had entire dedicated race series, including road course duty, but that doesn't make them sports cars. Four-doors can be raced, and even marketed as sports cars, but that doesn't make them sports cars. Sports cars have two doors, or only one, or zero. How many doors does your Mustang have? Right. On Point 1: Your Mustang is a sports car. 

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How many Seats Does Your Mustang Have?

It's not that four-seaters, or even 2+2 GT cars, can't be sports cars, it's just that it's a lot more likely your car fits that definition if there are only two seats—case in point: The 1965 Shelby GT350. When a carmaker wants to imbue their car with a sporty feel they put two seats in and then stop. When Shelby or Porsche or somebody else wants to make their coupe seem sportier they dump the rear seats and that's exactly what you do when you go racing. In the legendary Can-Am series the first two rules were: 1) wheels had to be covered, and 2) there had to be two seats. On Point 2: Your Mustang is probably a sports car if it only has front seats, but back seats don’t count it out. 

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Are Mustangs Fast and Can they Handle?

Sports cars don't have to be fast, lots of MGs aren't fast, and they don't have to handle well, lots of, well... MGs don't handle well either, but it helps if your car lets you enter a corner with purpose and power out of it with urgency. This is one area in which all Mustangs are not created equal. Is a Pinto-engined Mustang II a sports car? The 2.3 liter Pinto 4-cylinder is a fine engine and many races have been won on road courses, and elsewhere with it so it’s not a definite ‘no.’ It's to Ford’s credit that even the lowliest ‘Stang still has a foot in the game. Back to the question—yes, Mustangs are often very fast and handle well. On Point 3: Your Mustang has a good chance of being a sports car, and with some models, that chance is 100%. 

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Do Mustangs Race?

Mustangs have raced since even before Carroll Shelby got involved, and they always will. Very few single models of car have raced as long and as successfully, even Porsche 911s only predate Mustang by a year. It's true that Ford has put significant resources into some of those successes. But Mustangs have been there to offer a relatively lightweight platform to start with and have proved they can win races just about anywhere they pop up. Whenever another manufacturer puts together an effort to win a race or a race series, they usually have to take heavy competition from Mustangs into consideration. On Point 4: Your Mustang is bred from sports car racing.  

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How Compromised are Mustangs?

Not very. Mustangs historically compromise as much or as little as their owners want to: balancing the weight of a big block with the extra horses, balancing the comfort of A/C with the weight and power draw, balancing the ride quality of a handling package. The balancing operation today is more about price, but as price goes, it's not easy to find a vehicle that offers what Pony Cars do for the same scratch. You could spend over a million on whatever the next Veyron is and you'd end up with something uglier than a Mustang that fewer people would agree is a sports car than a Shelby. On Point 5: Your Mustang needn’t trade away its sports car status.

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Do History and Trolls Agree?

As far as history goes: yes, the world’s original Pony car was, is, and if Ford is smart, will continue to be a sports car. As for trolls: who cares what they say, if they had a Mustang they’d be out there driving or at least polishing it. On Point 5: Get out there and enjoy your Mustang. 

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