Sports coupe
Sport coupé is an unspecified and non-protected term for coupés or station wagons that have been developed from sedans of the middle class or smaller classes and are sporty.
Typical sports coupes were the Ford Capri and Opel Manta models introduced by Ford Germany and Opel in Europe . The vehicles were to copy the idea of the American pony cars in a scaled-down form, analogous to the entire European vehicle range . On the European market, other manufacturers reacted to these models with their own sports coupes (e.g. Toyota Celica , VW Scirocco ). These vehicles are more or less directly derived from the manufacturers' mid-range or compact-class models. Sports coupes are usually more powerfully motorized than the sedans from which they are derived. An extreme case are high-performance vehicles such as the BMW M3 , which offer performance similar to a sports car, but are also based on mid-range vehicles .
Typical sports coupes were also the two-door coupes from Alfa Romeo . From the Giulietta Sprint from 1954 to the Alfetta GTV , which was built until 1986, Alfa also offered the respective middle class as a coupé.
In the 1990s, these sports coupés were replaced by models that had a completely independent body shape, often more reminiscent of sports cars . Examples are the VW Corrado and the Opel Calibra . The demarcation to the sports car is defined more in these models by the lower performance; the utility is often low.
During this time there were also some sports coupés based on small cars, such as Fiat Coupé , Ford Puma or Opel Tigra . They too disappeared after a generation.
The few sports coupés today are mostly based on the concept of the 1990s. An eccentric belonging to this category is the Mazda RX-8 , which has four doors, but the rear ones cannot be recognized as such due to design tricks.
Examples
- 1960s
- Fiat 124 Coupe
- Fiat 850 Coupe
- Ford Capri
- Glass GT
- Simca 1000 Coupé Bertone / Simca 1200 S
- 1970s / 1980s
- Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint
- Alfa Romeo GTV (based on Alfa Romeo Alfetta )
- Audi Coupé (based on: Audi 80 )
- Fiat 128 Sport Coupe
- Ford Capri
- Honda CRX (base: Honda Civic )
- Lancia Beta Coupe
- Matra-Simca Bagheera
- Opel Manta (1970–1975, based on: Opel Ascona )
- Saab 900
- Talbot-Matra Murena
- Toyota Celica (based on Toyota Carina )
- VW Scirocco (based on VW Golf I )
- 1990s
- Alfa Romeo GTV 916
- Audi TT (since 1998)
- BMW Compact (1994-2004)
- Fiat Coupé (Basis: Fiat Tipo )
- Ford Cougar (1998-2002, base: Ford Mondeo )
- Ford Puma (1997-2001, based on Ford Fiesta )
- Hyundai Coupé (1996-2009)
- Mazda MX-3 (base: Mazda 323 / Protegé)
- Mazda MX-6 (base: Mazda 626 )
- Mercedes-Benz CLK-Class (1997-2010)
- Mitsubishi Eclipse (1990-2012)
- Opel Calibra (based on: Opel Vectra A)
- Opel Tigra (1994-2001, based on: Opel Corsa )
- Seat Cordoba SX (based on Seat Ibiza II)
- Toyota Celica (based on Toyota Carina)
- VW Corrado (based on VW Golf II )
- 2000s
- Acura RSX (2002-2006, based on: Honda Civic / Honda Integra )
- Alfa Romeo Brera (2005-2010)
- Alfa Romeo GT (2003-2010)
- BMW 1 Series Coupé (2007-2013)
- Hyundai Genesis Coupe (2008-2016)
- Opel Astra G Coupé (2000-2004)
- Mercedes-Benz C-Class Sports Coupé (2000–2011, from 2008 as CLC)
- Renault Mégane Coupé (2009-2012)
- Smart Roadster (2003-2005)
- 2010 and current series
- BMW 2 Series Coupé (F22, since 2013)
- Honda Civic Coupé (since 2016)
- Honda CR-Z (2010-2016, based on Honda Insight )
- Hyundai Veloster (since 2011)
- Mercedes C-Class Coupé (C 205, since 2015)
- Peugeot RCZ (2010-15)
- Toyota GT86 (since 2012)
- VW Scirocco III (2008-2017)