Hottest Sports Cars for 2006

Hottest Sports Cars for 2006
Never have so many sports cars been available at such a range of prices, from a $19,995 compact car to the $1,250,000, 253-mph Bugatti Veyron, and with performance capabilities extending from Spartan weekend touring to full race-track potential.

It’s a golden age of ever-increasing brute horsepower and extreme top speed on the one hand, and greater sophistication and dependability on the other. Gone are the cranky cloth tops, oil leaks, Prince of Darkness electrical accessories and the need for carry-on toolboxes that characterized the sports cars of the previous “golden age,” the pre-emissions and safety standards 1960s.

Still, the things that made a sports car great back then and hot right now haven’t changed, particularly some degree of high-performance capability and stunning looks. Some of the players from that previous era (Aston Martin, Chevrolet’s Corvette, Ferrari, Jaguar, Lotus, Mercedes-Benz, Morgan, Porsche) are with us still, plus names unfamiliar back then (BMW, Honda, Lamborghini, Mazda, Nissan, Saturn).


We’ve chosen our 2006 Hottest Sports Cars list of eight current greats with an eye on value, extreme performance and sheer physical beauty. The Corvette Z06 manages to combine all three, but even if a six-digit Aston Martin or Ferrari can hardly be called a bargain, or a Pontiac Solstice won’t do 200 mph, two out of three isn’t bad.

A Year of Firsts
Both calendar- and model-year 2006 will see a number of firsts, several of which are featured in the preceding hottest-cars list. Aston Martin is introducing the $110,000 V8 Vantage as a Porsche Carrera S competitor. The 253-mph Bugatti Veyron will finally become available around midyear. Cadillac is adding a supercharged 440-hp “V” version of its XLR luxury roadster.
The Z06 edition of the Chevrolet Corvette has raised the supercar bar for everybody. The third-generation 510-hp Dodge Viper coupe and the all-new Jaguar XK8 will debut. Lotus is adding the Exige, a track-focused coupe version of its Elise roadster. The all-new Pontiac Solstice roadster is on sale, and in May ’06 will be joined by a differently skinned (though mechanically identical) version from Saturn, the Sky. And as Porsche releases its eagerly anticipated Cayman S, BMW gears up to launch a triple threat in June: Z4 Coupe, M Coupe and M Roadster.

True sports cars come from companies that validate the vehicles' capability through competition — motor sports. Obviously that’s true of such companies as Ferrari, but even Pontiac has a long history of NASCAR and drag-racing competition, and sports-car newcomer Cadillac several years ago embarked upon a serious — and successful — international racing program including Le Mans 24-Hour challenges.


The Miata has its own spec-racing series and is a popular Sports Car Club of America competitor. No road-race weekend is complete without hordes of Corvettes and Porsches on the track, and though the Jaguar XK and Aston Martin V8 Vantage are intended to be GTs (grand tourers) rather than stiff-legged racecars, full-race versions of those cars are active in top-level international competition.

Some of the most stunning sports cars are mass-production versions of auto-show concept cars, which start out as one-of-a-kind vehicles intended to showcase a company’s technological talents and to serve as no-limits styling exercises for its designers. The Porsche Boxster was one, and the Pontiac Solstice is another.


The ’07 Jaguar XK starred at international auto shows for two years as a concept car, at least in part to gauge public interest in the new shape, which was finalized and is going into production. And the current buzz-machine is the all-wheel-drive, twin-turbo, 400-hp Skyline GT-R coupe, so far seen only as a Nissan auto-show concept car but scheduled for production as an ’08 or ’09 Infiniti model.

The world’s very first automobiles were sports cars. They were at the cutting edge of what then passed for “high performance,” though that may have meant barely 20 mph. And just as is true today of horses — once the country’s prime movers but now used almost entirely for pleasure — the world’s last automobiles could very well someday be solely for sport, as well. When we’ve tapped new energy sources and means of travel, the last lingering terrestrial four-wheelers might just be designed purely for fun, as utility will have been found elsewhere.

But well before that happens, there’s plenty of time to take advantage of this generation’s glut of splendid pleasure machines. In the automotive industry, sports cars are known as “reward cars.” People buy them not because they need one — who needs 500 hp or a convertible top? — but to reward themselves for … well, a year of hard work, a bonus thoroughly earned, putting all the kids through college, or a promotion well deserved. Isn’t it time you came up with your own reason?