There is no definitive scale of classifying high performance vehicles, but there are certain categories widely agreed upon by enthusiasts and manufacturers that are based on performance and a couple other factors. The most frequently used system for high performance car categorization begins with sports cars, then supercars and finally hypercars for the highest level of performance.
But what happens when you have a car like the Aston Martin Valhalla that does not exactly reach the status of a hypercar but is easily beyond a supercar? Many people don’t seem to be very sure about where to fit the Valhalla and I’ve seen both the terms supercar and hypercar used for it. However, I propose there needs to be an entirely new category for these cars: Exotic Supercars.
Why Exotic Supercars? The inspiration for this comes from the videogame Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, which uses a five level category system for cars and have an “Exotic Series” consisting of exactly the kind of cars that would fit this category which don’t fit the supercar or hypercar categories (which the game also has).
Also, since the term “Exotic Car” already exists and is generally used as a broader category for supercars and hypercars, Exotic Supercar would be easy enough to understand and it just feels like a good way to describe specific car models that stand out as more special or more extreme compared to others in the supercar segment.
Besides the Aston Martin Valhalla, cars like the McLaren 765LT, Porsche 911 GT2 RS, Ferrari SF90 XX Stradale, Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and Mercedes SLR McLaren are some examples that would qualify for the exotic supercar category as they are all cars that stand out enough or are top variants of their respective model, same thing with top level supercars from before the true hypercar era (1990s and even earlier) such as the Jaguar XJ220 and Porsche 959.
If there is a car that you aren’t sure if it is a supercar or a hypercar, most likely it belongs to the exotic supercar category. Of course, there are going to be exceptions, but in my opinion the hypercar category should maintain a level of exclusivity and trying to flood it ruins the whole point of having it in the first place, as it is reserved for the rarest and most extreme cars on the planet.
I don’t expect everyone to use this term. Me personally? I think it fits quite nicely and you will be seeing me using it from this point onwards, especially as the number of exotic supercars continue to increase.
Share:
Leave a Reply