A sports sedan (also known as sports saloon in British English) is a subjective term for a sedan car that is designed to have sporting performance or

handling Handling may refer to: * Automobile handling, the turning characteristics of land vehicles * Handling of stolen goods, a statutory offence in England and Wales and Northern Ireland People * Adam Handling (born 1988), British chef and restaura ...

characteristics.

History

The term was originally introduced in the 1930s and early examples include the Sports Saloon versions of the

Rover 14 The Rover Fourteen was a medium-sized family car and variants produced by the British Rover car company between 1924 and 1948. Civilian automobile production was interrupted in 1940 because of the war, but when the war ended in 1945, the Rover 14 r ...

and

Rover 16 The Rover 16/50 and Rover 16 are mid-sized cars which were produced by Rover from 1926 to 1929 and non-continuously from 1936 to 1947 respectively. Rover initially responding to requests for a more powerful engine for their four-cylinder 14 ...

. From the 1960s, the term ''sports sedan'' was increasingly applied by manufacturers to special versions of their vehicles that allowed them to enter production cars in motor races. These cars contained modifications not normally permitted by the regulations which therefore required cars to be

homologated Homologation (Greek ''homologeo'', ὁμολογέω, "to agree") is the granting of approval by an official authority. This may be a court of law, a government department, or an academic or professional body, any of which would normally work f ...

typically by selling them in minimum numbers to the public. Some of the earlier examples were the

Alfa Romeo 1900 The Alfa Romeo 1900 is an automobile produced by Italian car manufacturer Alfa Romeo from 1950 until 1959. Designed by Orazio Satta, it was an important development for Alfa Romeo as the marque's first car built entirely on a production line and f ...

Renault R8 Gordini The Renault 8 (Renault R8 until 1964) and Renault 10 are two rear-engined, rear-wheel drive small family cars produced by the French manufacturer Renault in the 1960s and early 1970s. The 8 was launched in 1962, and the 10, a more upmarket ver ...

, Triumph Dolomite, and Lotus Cortina. In the twentieth century, sports sedans used a manual transmission and rear-wheel drive. However as other transmission types and drivetrain layouts have become more widespread for sedans in general, these have also been used by sports sedans.

North American usage

The term "sport sedan" was initially used in North America for luxury import sedans (i.e. BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz). These cars gave higher priority to

than the domestic luxury sedans (i.e.

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed i ...

and Lincoln), which were more focused on comfort. However, since the 2000s, the domestic brands have begun producing sports sedan models such as the Cadillac CTS and Lincoln LS. Another term sometimes used is to describe sports sedans in the US is muscle car, but that normally relates to V8-powered two-door coupe American cars.

Examples

* Alfa Romeo Giulia (952) *

Audi S4 The Audi S4 is the high performance variant of Audi's compact executive car A4. The original Audi S4, built from 1991 until 1994, was a performance-oriented version of Audi's 100 saloon/sedan. All subsequent S4s since 1997 have been based on ...

BMW M3 The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986. The initial model ...

* BMW M5 * Cadillac CTS-V * Dodge Charger (LX/LD) * Jaguar XJ * Jaguar XF * Kia Stinger * Lexus IS F *

Lexus GS F The is an executive car sold by Lexus, the premium division (business), division of Toyota. The same car had been launched in 1991 as the Toyota Aristo in Japan. For non-Japanese markets, it was released as the Lexus GS in February 1993. It cont ...

* Maserati Quattroporte GTS * Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG *

Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG The Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a range of executive cars manufactured by German automaker Mercedes-Benz in various engine and body configurations. Produced since 1953, the E-Class falls midrange in the Mercedes line-up, and has been marketed worldwi ...

* Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG *

MG ZS 180 The MG ZS was a sports family car that was built by MG Rover from 2001 until 2005. The ZS is essentially a tuned version of the Rover 45 (which was launched in 1999). The 45 in turn is a facelifted version of the Rover 400 which was launched ...

* MG ZT 260 * Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution *

Vauxhall VXR8 The Vauxhall VXR8 is a performance car marketed by Vauxhall Motors, Vauxhall in the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2017, based on two different models produced by Holden Special Vehicles: the HSV Clubsport (2007–2009) and HSV GTS (2010–2017). ...

Vauxhall Lotus Carlton The Lotus Carlton (also called Vauxhall Lotus Carlton, Lotus Omega and Opel Lotus Omega) is a Vauxhall Carlton/Opel Omega A saloon upgraded by Lotus in order to be able to reach speeds up to 285 km/h (177 mph) with acceleration to e ...

Autoexpress "GM gave the engineers at Hethel a Carlton GSi 3000 and asked them to transform it into a fire-breathing super saloon - which they did. The result was the legendary Lotus Carlton, the first four-door to crack the 170mph" http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/vauxhall/vectra/15524/vauxhall-vectra *

Subaru WRX The Subaru WRX is an all-wheel drive sport compact car manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru, originally based on the Impreza created for the World Rally Championship in 1992. Subaru claimed the name WRX stands for "World Rally eXperim ...

References

External links

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