Let’s be absolutely clear here: all these terms are pretty stupid. I mean, generally, I think the very idea of Supercars are sort of stupid as it is, massively expensive, absurdly capable and fast vehicles that are doomed to spend most their lives immobile in some jackass’ climate-controlled car-spa. Still, they’re here, they can be fun, and companies that build them like to call them “hypercars” now. It’s time to set some standards.
It seems that there’s three main terms currently in use for these sorts of cars: supercar, hypercar, and, rarely, megacar. Currently, the decision about how to use these terms has been vague and usually the choice of the manufacturer, who’ll just pick whichever one sounds the best to them. Of course, they are not to be trusted.
We need some hard, fast metrics for each category, and we need to expand the roster of terms for future development. As far as what these metrics should be, the ones that seem to make the most sense are power, price, exclusivity/rarity, and let’s say technical/design novelty.
My initial urge was to define supercars as anything with over 80 horsepower, so almost anyone could enjoy the status of supercar, but that was deemed too “stupid” by everyone here, save for our editor, Patrick, who praised it as “moronic.”
So, let’s try these categories:
Supercar
Power: 800 to 1,200 HP / Top speed: 200 to 250 mph
Price: $250,000 to $999,000
Exclusivity/rarity: under 2,000 produced
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
Hypercar
Power: 1,201 to 2,000 HP / Top speed: 251 to 300 mph
Price: $1 million to $5 million
Exclusivity/rarity: under 1,000 produced
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
AND at least one bit of cutting-edge engine tech (KERS, camless valvetrain, variable-diameter cylinders, etc)
Megacar
Power: 2,001 to 3,000 HP / Top speed: 301 to 350 mph
Price: $5.1 million to $20 million
Exclusivity/rarity: under 200 produced
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
AND at least one bit of cutting-edge engine tech (KERS, camless valvetrain, variable-diameter cylinders, etc)
AND barely look like a car as we understand it
Ultracar
Power: 3,001 to 5,000 HP / Top speed: 351 to 500 mph
Price: $20.1 million to $50 million
Exclusivity/rarity: under 50 produced
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
AND at least one bit of cutting-edge engine tech (KERS, camless valvetrain, variable-diameter cylinders, etc)
AND barely look like a car as we understand it
AND do something cars have never done before (hover, sexually pleasure you in the seats, have a liquid-metal roof)
Ultimacar
Power: 5,001 to 10,000 HP / Top speed: 501 to Mach 1
Price: $50.1 million to $100 million
Exclusivity/rarity: under 10 produced
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
AND at least one bit of cutting-edge engine tech (KERS, camless valvetrain, variable-diameter cylinders, etc)
AND barely look like a car as we understand it
AND do something cars have never done before (hover, sexually pleasure you in the seats, have a liquid-metal roof)
AND be absolutely incapable of being driven by anyone without a solid decade of training
Maxinfnicar
Power: 10,001 to 100,000 HP / Top speed: Mach 1.5 to Mach 3
Price: $100 million to $999 million
Exclusivity/rarity: only one produced
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
AND at least one bit of cutting-edge engine tech (KERS, camless valvetrain, variable-diameter cylinders, etc)
AND barely look like a car as we understand it
AND do something cars have never done before (hover, sexually pleasure you in the seats, have a liquid-metal roof)
AND be absolutely incapable of being driven by anyone without a solid decade of training
AND be capable of single-handedly overthrowing a sovereign industrialized nation if desired
Deificar
Power: 100,001 to ∞ HP / lightspeed to tesseracting
Price: $1 billion to all the money there is
Exclusivity/rarity: if the car exists, it simultaneously cannot exist
Technical/design novelty: must have weird-opening doors
AND at least one bit of cutting-edge engine tech (KERS, camless valvetrain, variable-diameter cylinders, etc)
AND barely look like a car as we understand it
AND do something cars have never done before (hover, sexually pleasure you in the seats, have a liquid-metal roof)
AND be absolutely incapable of being driven by anyone without a solid decade of training
AND be capable of single-handedly overthrowing a sovereign industrialized nation if desired
AND can use its will to create or destroy life; is all-knowing, all-seeing, an omnipotent force; gets better than 40 mpg