50 Fun Facts About Sports Car

The Porsche 911 was originally going to be sold under which number, until Peugeot objected?

Peugeot claimed exclusive French rights to three-digit names with a zero in the middle; 82 cars had already worn the 901 badge.

Where is the engine in a Porsche 911?

Every 911 has had a rear-mounted flat-six; the engines were air-cooled until the 996 series arrived in 1998.

In what year did the Porsche 911 go into production?

It replaced the 356 and was first shown at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show; the millionth 911 was built in 2017.

How many cylinders does a Porsche 911 engine have?

It is a horizontally opposed "flat" or "boxer" six, and it has been that way since 1964.

In which Italian town is Ferrari based?

The factory moved there from Modena in 1943 to escape Allied bombing raids.

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

Baracca's mother suggested Enzo adopt it as a good-luck charm; the yellow background is the colour of Modena.

Why is the background of the Ferrari badge yellow?

The horse first appeared on Scuderia Ferrari's Alfa Romeo 8C in 1932.

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

A non-compete clause meant his first company had to be called Auto Avio Costruzioni for four years.

What was the F40 built to celebrate?

It was the last car Enzo personally approved, and at $400,000 it was five times the price of the 288 GTO it replaced.

What does "Testarossa" literally mean in Italian?

It refers to the red-painted cam covers on the flat-12 engine, honouring the 1957 250 Testa Rossa racer.

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

It arrived in the 1986 season, the same year Sega put it in the arcade game Out Run.

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

Lamborghini Trattori, founded in 1948, still makes tractors as a separate company.

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

His 250 GTs kept needing clutch rebuilds at Maranello, and Enzo Ferrari dismissed his complaints.

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

It changed hands several times after the 1970s oil crisis before Audi took control in 1998.

The Lamborghini Miura is named after what?

It was the first production road car with a rear mid-engine layout, and the fastest car in the world at launch in 1966.

The name of the Lamborghini Countach comes from what?

The wedge-shaped Bertone design first appeared as the LP500 concept at Geneva in 1971.

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

All 300 hand-built 1953 convertibles were Polo White; the car was named after a small, nimble warship.

How many Corvettes were built in the first model year, 1953?

It began as a show car at the GM Motorama at New York's Waldorf-Astoria; production has been in Bowling Green, Kentucky, since 1981.

The Corvette was named after what?

The suggestion came from Myron Scott, an assistant PR director at GM, in 1953.

Which Corvette generation finally moved the engine behind the driver?

The first seven generations, through 2019, were front mid-engined.

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

More than a million have been sold since its 1989 Chicago Auto Show debut, using the Lotus Elan as a design benchmark.

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

The MX-5 launched when small roadsters had almost vanished, with only the pricier Alfa Spider left in production.

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

New York's Museum of Modern Art added a blue E-Type roadster to its permanent collection in 1996, one of only six cars so honoured.

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?

AC in Thames Ditton completed the first prototype in January 1962 and air-freighted it to Carroll Shelby in Los Angeles.

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

The DB stands for David Brown, who built up the company from 1947; the DB5 was styled by Touring of Milan.

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

The tractor magnate bought Aston Martin in 1947 and put his initials on every car.

How many years in a row had the rival Ford set out to beat won Le Mans before the GT40 ended the streak?

Ferrari's run lasted from 1960 to 1965; Ford then won four straight from 1966.

In what year did the Ford GT40 first win Le Mans, with three cars crossing the line together?

It made Ford the first American manufacturer to win a major European race since a Duesenberg took the 1921 French Grand Prix.

What is unusual about the seating in a McLaren F1?

Designer Gordon Murray had wanted a three-seat sports car since his youth; the engine bay is lined with gold foil.

Which company built the V12 engine for the McLaren F1?

Only 106 F1s were built between 1992 and 1998, and one won Le Mans outright in 1995.

How many McLaren F1s were built in total?

It was recognised as the fastest production car in the world when launched.

How many cylinders does the Bugatti Veyron's engine have?

The quad-turbo W16 pushed the original car to 253 mph and the Super Sport to nearly 268 mph.

The Bugatti Veyron is named after what?

Pierre Veyron won Le Mans for Bugatti in 1939; the successor Chiron is named for driver Louis Chiron.

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?

Christian von Koenigsegg founded the company in 1994; it operates from a former Swedish Air Force base.

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

At 197 mph it was the fastest street-legal car in the world when introduced, and its all-wheel drive shaped the 911 Carrera 4.

How many cylinders does the Dodge Viper's engine have?

Lamborghini, then a Chrysler subsidiary, cast the prototype aluminium block; Carroll Shelby drove the pace car at the 1991 Indy 500.

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

Its cockpit styling was inspired by the F-16 fighter jet, and Honda aimed to beat Ferrari's V8s on price and reliability.

The 2019 fifth-generation Toyota Supra was built in Austria alongside which BMW model?

Magna Steyr builds both in Graz; the original 1978 Supra was a stretched Celica.

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

It was the sixth generation to wear the GT-R badge but the first not to be a Skyline; production ended in 2025 after about 48,000 cars.

Which Chinese carmaker is the majority owner of Lotus?

Colin Chapman's company has been at Hethel in Norfolk since 1966 and won seven F1 world championships.

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

It became the Zonda instead, after a hot wind that blows over Argentina, and used Mercedes-AMG V12 engines.

What was the peak power output of the Bugatti Chiron's W16 engine?

The first 200 cars were sold before a single one had been delivered.

What was the name of Ferrari's first car to wear the badge, in 1947?

The rectangular Prancing Horse badge has been used since that car.

What was the first true Lamborghini production model, released in the mid-1960s?

The 350 GTV prototype before it was a one-off, considered too futuristic to sell.

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

The same year the mid-engined Miura appeared, which with the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is often called the first supercar.

Ettore Bugatti famously called which 1920s British car 'the fastest lorry in the world'?

The 3 Litre was built from 1921 to 1929, and MG's Midgets were the best-selling sports cars of the following decade.

Since 1981 the Chevrolet Corvette has been built in which Kentucky city, home of its museum?

Earlier production took place in Flint, Michigan, and St. Louis, Missouri.

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.