Information AboutSport Compact |
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Sport compact cars are typically Front-engine, Front Wheel Drive (FF) Compacts or Subcompact s driven by a Naturally Aspirated 4-cylinder engine. Typical sport compacts include the Acura Integra , Honda Civic , Mazda MX-3 , Toyota Celica , and more recently, the Chevrolet Cobalt . The design philosophy of a sport compact sharply contrasts with those of 'true' sports cars. Sports cars are designed with a performance-oriented philosophy, often compromising cargo space, seating, gas mileage, driveability, and reliability. A sport compact is usually designed with a practical design philosophy and profit in mind. This philosophy has led to several compromises when it comes to performance, such as front wheel drive, conservative engine design, and platform sharing. Electronic Control Unit s are also programmed for optimal gas mileage. Performance-oriented sport compacts focus on improving handling and increasing engine efficiency, rather than increasing engine size or conversion to Rear-wheel Drive . For example, the Celica GT-S and RSX Type-S are both sport compacts that produce 100 hp/ L of displacement, and have handling superior to their stock trims. However, these models are expensive compared to sports cars of similar performance. CLASSIFICATION & DEBATE The exact definition of a sport compact remains a subject of debate. Many believe that any 4-cylinder compact car with 130 hp or more falls into this category, so a RWD car such as the Nissan 240SX would be a sport compact. High performance versions of compact cars, such as the Subaru WRX STi or the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution often make proper categorization ambiguous. Many see the addition of Forced Induction as the delineation, as that the increased power provided by forced induction can make a 4 cylinder engine produce more power than most six cylinder engines. Some would venture so far as to place any performance-oriented car with less than 8 cylinders in this category. However, this categorization is very broad, as cars such as the Toyota Supra , Acura NSX , Lotus Elise , and the Nissan Skyline would then fall into the same category as the Honda Civic and Nissan Sentra. This is probably based on the design philosophy of domestic automakers, as they usually produce sports cars driven by eight cylinder engines, reserving six cylinder engines for less competitive models. |
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