Snap up the performance cars while you can

Where have all the performance cars gone? Why have they disappeared? Will they come back?

In just a few years, countless sports cars and performance models have quietly disappeared. A Chicxulub-scale meteorite has hit planet Fast Car, wiping out a whole generation of performance models we took for granted, with no replacements planned.

Gone are the Peugeot 208 and 308 GTI; Ford Fiesta and Focus ST, and Focus RS; Abarth 124 Spider; Chrysler 300 SRT and its Hemi-powered sibling, the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT. The Renault Clio RS is dead and the Megane RS not far behind, the Megane itself set to be turned into a small, electric SUV. Which thrills us like hearing Phillip Lowe announce another interest rate rise.

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The sports car mass extinction extends further – in the USA, Dodge is cancelling Challenger and Charger, Chevrolet says this will be the last Camaro and if the Mustang coupe was an animal, the World Wildlife Foundation would be gathering up the remaining breeding pairs and stuffing them into candlelit enclosures.

The Kia Stinger is one and done, the Hyundai i30 and i20 N are shaping up as mere kimchi-flavoured flashes in Korea’s hot hatch history, and Jaguar won’t replace the F-Type, nor Audi with its iconic TT, both bowing out permanently in the next year or two.

What’s going on?!

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Basically, emissions regulations such as the proposed, almost unrealistically strict EU7, are consuming more money and manpower than any other challenge in the history of car making.

Niche performance models, and sports cars, are a distraction.

“Car manufacturers are thinking 2027, 2030 and beyond,” says an anonymous industry insider, working in the senior engineering ranks at a global automaker. “They need to reroute the money into the programs that they need to make (to meet future emissions regulations).

"A lot of those [electric vehicle] programs take more investment because the technology is not quite there yet, or not as mature as everyone thought it was going to be by now.

"The cost of stuff hasn’t come down as much as everyone expected. It’s expensive, the engineering is expensive, and that makes it difficult to cast your net wide and do those emissions-based programs that you need to do to stay relevant in the market – and then still do the performance stuff on the side.”

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That means the only brands likely to continue offering performance models are the ones that 'don’t have a choice', such as Porsche, Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG.

And to survive, every new model they offer will at least “need a plug” – like the new plug-in hybrid C63.

“I think everything will get heavier,” says our man. “They kind of have to at the moment. At least from now until 2030.”

It goes further than emissions – demand for sports cars and performance models has been declining globally. And EVs are cutting the sports car’s grass as an ‘image leader or brand champion’.

“In many instances they think they can do that through EV. They can position that as a technological tour-de-force whereas previously a tech-equipped hot hatch may have done it.

"Or a high-end sedan loaded with features, that may have been the grand champion. Now it’s about, ‘if we have a Tesla competitor’. Or using Kia’s example, an EV6 GT, then ‘We’ve got EV and we’re doing performance at the same time’.”

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Moral of the story?

Now’s the time to make the silliest but most satisfying financial decision of your life – buying a sports car.

New BMW M2, Ford Mustang, VW Golf GTI, Mazda MX-5, Honda Civic Type R, Toyota GR Corolla, Subaru BRZ… there’s still a few top drawer models to choose from.

“I think we’re in a golden era at the moment,” says our source.

“Some of the big bangers we’ve got now, we won’t have [again], and everybody should be enjoying what we’ve got.”