46 Fun Facts About Sports Car

Which carmaker's objection made Porsche rename its new 901 sports car as the 911?

Peugeot had protected three-digit model names with a zero in the middle, so Porsche switched to 911 after building 82 cars as the 901.

Where is the engine in a road-going Porsche 911?

Behind the rear axle, where Porsche kept it even when the 911 switched from air to water cooling with the 996 in 1998.

Where did the millionth Porsche 911 end up?

Porsche kept the millionth 911, built in May 2017, in its museum in Stuttgart for good rather than sell it.

What type of engine has powered every Porsche 911?

Flat-six engines power every 911, while the cheaper 1965 version with the 356's four-cylinder engine was sold as the 912.

In which Italian town is Ferrari based?

Maranello took in Ferrari's workshop in 1943, a wartime move away from Allied bombing, yet Allied bombers struck the new factory there twice.

Ferrari's prancing horse emblem was originally painted on the plane of which World War I flying ace?

Francesco Baracca's mother, Countess Paolina, urged Enzo to put her son's prancing horse on his cars because it would bring him luck.

Why is the background of the Ferrari badge yellow?

It is the colour of Modena, Enzo's home town, and the yellow badge made its racing debut at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours, which the Scuderia's cars dominated.

For which company had Enzo Ferrari been a racing driver and team manager before founding his own?

Alfa Romeo gave Enzo his best results as a driver, and his first aim as a carmaker was to beat the Alfas he knew so intimately.

What was the F40 built to celebrate?

The company's 40th anniversary brought the F40, and buyers queued so eagerly before production began that more than 1,300 were built.

What does "Testarossa" literally mean in Italian?

Red head refers to the red-painted camshaft covers, a nod to the 1950s Testa Rossa racing cars whose engines wore them first.

Which 1980s TV series made the white Ferrari Testarossa an icon?

Miami Vice put its white Testarossa on screen from 1986, and the car's cheese-grater side strakes became visual shorthand for the Eighties.

What did Ferruccio Lamborghini manufacture before he started building sports cars in 1963?

Tractors came first: Ferruccio Lamborghini built them from leftover wartime military vehicles, and Lamborghini Trattori still makes them.

Famously, what Ferrari component annoyed Ferruccio Lamborghini so much that he built his own cars?

In one telling, the clutch on his Ferraris kept needing rebuilds, so he set out to build a better car himself.

Which group has owned Lamborghini through its Audi division since 1998?

Volkswagen, through Audi, has run Lamborghini since 1998, but an American carmaker got there first: Chrysler took control of the company in 1987.

The Lamborghini Miura is named after what?

Named for a Spanish fighting-bull breeder, the Miura became a film star when an orange one drove through the Alps in the opening of The Italian Job (1969).

The name of the Lamborghini Countach comes from what?

An exclamation of astonishment in Piedmontese dialect gave the name, by designer Marcello Gandini's account after a Bertone workman's habit of saying it.

The Chevrolet Corvette's original bodywork was made of what unusual material?

Fiberglass was only meant for the first few hundred bodies before a switch to steel, yet the Corvette went on using it for generations.

What engine did the Corvette first offer in 1955?

A V8, the new 265-cubic-inch small-block, arrived as an option in 1955 and helped save a Corvette that GM had considered dropping.

The Corvette was named after what?

GM publicist Myron Scott suggested the name of a small, manoeuvrable warship, the corvette, a type later used to escort wartime convoys.

What did the 2020 Corvette finally switch to?

A mid-engine layout ended a front-engined run dating back to 1953, and Chevrolet dropped the manual gearbox, offering only an automatic.

What is the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history?

The Mazda MX-5 Miata revived the light, fun open roadster of the 1960s, a type that had almost disappeared from the market by the 1980s.

Which classic British roadster did Mazda use as the design benchmark for the MX-5?

The Lotus Elan was the model, so the first Miata, pop-up headlamps and all, looked like a '60s Elan remastered for a new era.

Which car did Enzo Ferrari reputedly call "the most beautiful car ever made" in 1961?

The Jaguar E-Type's looks later earned a roadster a place in the permanent design collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.

What was Jaguar's 1961 roadster called in North America?

It claimed a 150 mph top speed and sub-7-second 0-60 time in 1961.

The Shelby Cobra was built by dropping a Ford V8 into which small British roadster?

The AC Ace got a new Ford 221 V8 at AC's Thames Ditton works, and Shelby's first Cobra was then tested at England's MIRA track.

In which James Bond film did the Aston Martin DB5 first appear?

Goldfinger's novel had given Bond an older Aston Martin, the DB Mark III, but for the film the car was updated to the new DB5.

What do the letters DB in Aston Martin DB5 stand for?

David Brown's initials name the DB5, and his company lent the Bond film-makers the original DB5 prototype for the cameras.

After Enzo Ferrari backed out of a 1963 sale, which Ford boss ordered a car to beat him at Le Mans?

Henry Ford II, enraged when the deal collapsed, told his team to beat Ferrari at Le Mans, or so the legend goes, and the GT40 did it in 1966.

Which Ford driver lost the 1966 Le Mans win after a staged three-car photo finish?

Ken Miles had to settle for second: McLaren and Amon had started further back, so officials ruled they had covered more ground.

What is unusual about the seating in a McLaren F1?

Driver centred, a passenger on each side: McLaren built that three-seater, and five F1 LM road cars celebrated its 1995 Le Mans win.

What does the 4 in Veyron 16.4 stand for?

Turbochargers, four of them, feed its 16-cylinder engine, which makes so much heat that the Veyron carries around ten radiators and coolers.

The Bugatti Veyron is named after what?

A Bugatti racing driver, Pierre Veyron co-drove a Bugatti to victory at the 1939 24 Hours of Le Mans with Jean-Pierre Wimille.

In which country is the Bugatti Veyron manufactured?

It is designed by Volkswagen in Germany but built at Molsheim in Alsace.

Which Swedish manufacturer's Agera RS set a two-way production-car speed record of 447 km/h in 2017?

Koenigsegg had only just begun building its first production car, the CC8S, when fire struck its factory in February 2003.

The Porsche 959 was originally developed to compete in which motorsport category?

Built for Group B, the 959 passed its all-wheel-drive know-how to the 911, where four-wheel drive became a staple of the range.

What type of engine powered the original Dodge Viper?

A V10, and Lamborghini, then owned by Chrysler, helped turn the engine from iron to aluminium by casting a prototype block.

Which Formula One champion gave input on the Honda/Acura NSX during its final development?

Ayrton Senna helped hone the NSX, which Honda built to rival contemporary Ferraris.

In which country was the fifth-generation Toyota Supra built alongside the BMW Z4?

Austria: Magna Steyr built both cars at its Graz plant, because Toyota developed the fifth Supra with BMW on a shared platform.

The Nissan GT-R (R35) succeeded a high-performance version of which Nissan model line?

The R35 kept the GT-R badge of the Skyline but was the first GT-R not sold as a Skyline, and the last one left Nissan's Tochigi plant in 2025.

Which Chinese carmaker owns the British sports car maker Lotus?

Geely owns Lotus, whose first SUV, the electric Eletre, is built in Wuhan, China, rather than at the company's Hethel home.

The Pagani Zonda was going to be named after which racing driver before his death in 1995?

Juan Manuel Fangio's death in 1995 ended that plan, so the car was named after the zonda, a hot wind that blows over Argentina.

In which city did Ferrari's first car, the 125 S, win its first race?

Rome: after failing to finish its Piacenza debut in May 1947, the 125 S won the Rome Grand Prix two weeks later with Franco Cortese.

Which coachbuilder built the first production Lamborghini, the 350 GT?

Touring reworked the earlier 350 GTV prototype, whose body Franco Scaglione had designed, into the production car's aluminium body.

Which 1966 car was the first sports car to use all-wheel drive?

The Jensen FF paired four-wheel drive with anti-lock brakes, arriving 14 years before the Audi Quattro made all-wheel drive a rally weapon.

Since 1981 the Chevrolet Corvette has been built in which Kentucky city?

Bowling Green made news in February 2014, when a sinkhole opened under a Corvette showcase there and swallowed eight rare cars.

The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray coupe had which feature for that model year only?

Chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov disliked it for blocking rear vision, but designer Bill Mitchell considered it central to the look.