(Bloomberg) – A true sports car — a genuine ground-scraping, carbon-veined track monster — is terrible at most things. It doesn't lend itself to Uber, it's crap on a Costco run and in today's truck-crazy culture, it's so low that the driver can't see anything but the bumpers of the SUVs around them.
And that's to say nothing of the traditional drawbacks. There's the astronomical expense of purchasing one (plus keeping it running) and their tendency to make a driver look a bit cheesy unless handled carefully (see Newman, Paul; Rodriguez, Michelle; and this guy).
|Significant change in desire for driving
For all of those reasons and more, swanky sports cars are losing momentum in the U.S. of late. Sales in the segment have declined for the past six quarters. Last year, nearly one-third of premium sports car purchases vanished, according to Edmunds.com. The trend is only accelerating this year. There was a 52% drop in sales during the first quarter of 2016.
“I think there's a significant change in the desire for driving — I think there's a significant slowdown in that,” said Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO of consultancy Vivaldi Partners Group, which advises carmakers.
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