Best Sport Cars 2017 !

McLaren 570S

'Entry level' McLaren is still a sensational piece of sports car engineering that entertains in spades

The spectacular McLaren 570S has just won our Performance Car of The Year award, so you won’t be surprised to see it heading our list of the top 10 sports cars to buy in 2016.

It’s not the cheapest car in our list by a long stretch, but it’s the cheapest McLaren that money can buy with a starting price of £143k. Relatively speaking it makes the junior McLaren a bargain, offering almost identical performance to the similarly priced Porsche 911 Turbo S, in a much more exotic and desirable package.

The 570S comes with McLaren’s twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8, in this case making 562bhp. That’s enough to catapult you to 60mph in 3.1 seconds using launch control. The 570S is also the easiest McLaren to live with, thanks to redesigned doors that ease access, and it even has a boot that’s larger than the 911 Turbo’s too. With a fabulous handling chassis offering incredible grip, excellent damping and good steering feedback, the 570S is just a joy to drive fast. It’s comfortable and refined enough for touring, although the 570 GT is an even more capable machine.
You don’t buy a supercar for its fuel economy, but it’s a plus if your rocket sled doesn’t swill gasoline like a Starbucks addict downs double-shot caramel whatevers. The 570S doesn’t embarrass itself at the pump, coming in solidly midpack, but the Porsche 911 Carrera 4S shows how amazingly fuel efficient an ultra-performance car can be.

The 570S’s twin-turbo V-8 will be familiar to McLaren fans, as it’s a detuned version of the hypermills that power the more expensive 675LT and P1 hybrid. It certainly wasn’t designed with fuel economy in mind, but the 570S manages a respectable 23-mpg EPA highway rating and something surprising: its fuel economy is good enough to avoid a gas-guzzler tax.

We perform our own fuel-economy test in an attempt to replicate how most people drive on the highway. Our procedure entails a 200-mile loop on Michigan’s I-94 highway. We maintain a GPS-verified 75 mph and use the cruise control as much as possible to mimic the way many drivers behave during long trips.

The 570S outperformed its EPA highway rating by 1 mpg during our 200-mile highway fuel-economy test. That result was better than the one returned by the Acura NSX, which is a hybrid, but far behind the exceptionally efficient, gasoline-powered Porsche 911 Carrera 4S. How did the BMW i8 hybrid outdistance the others by so much? It cruised the first 15 miles solely on electricity before engaging its small three-cylinder gasoline engine.



The 570S is a car that’s magnificently one-sided, skewed so far toward annihilating back roads at insane velocities that it inspires both awe and terror when driven as its makers intended. We love it for that brilliance and purity of purpose, but other cars in this class offer a more refined and more comfortable driving experience.


Few vehicles in the world can match the 570S for sheer driver engagement. Its tactile steering, a chassis that feels alive, and its bottomless well of power kept us wanting more time with it on our favorite roads. The 570S will never be particularly cozy or convenient, so drivers must weigh the transcendent driving experience against daily utility before buying.

Sitting behind the wheel of a McLaren 570S with its V-8 engine growling sweet nothings into your ear, it’s hard to resist full-power accelerations. Indulge with care, though. In Normal mode, a full-throttle run elicits intervention from the stability-control system as the 570S attempts to transfer its prodigious power to the road. Turn off stability control, and the 570S requires a steady hand on the wheel to avoid expensive misfortune. In its class of junior supercars, its performance makes a mic-drop statement: the 570S is both the quickest through the quarter-mile and the fastest at the end of it.


Two agencies evaluate vehicles for crashworthiness in the United States. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rates tested vehicles from one to five stars in front crash, side crash, and rollover tests. NHTSA also assigns cars an overall rating out of five stars. The non-profit, independent, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) uses a different set of tests to evaluate front and side crashworthiness, roof strength, headlight reach, and ease of child seat installation. IIHS grades cars on a scale from Good to Poor in each test, and awards the cars that perform best across all its tests with Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick + honors, the latter of which requires that the vehicle’s automated forward-collision-braking system performs well in IIHS’s tests.


Neither NHTSA nor the IIHS has tested the McLaren 570S; the agencies do not test every car every year, and low-volume models like the 570S are often among the unexamined.

Mazda MX-5 

It's a modern-day classic that's had 25 years of development under its belt to make it one of the most fun cars on sale

 

The fourth-generation Mazda MX-5 has some big boots to fill. Unprecedented success over the last 25 years has elevated Mazda's roadster to become the world’s best-selling two-seater sports car. We especially love them here in the UK, with around half of all Mazda MX-5s sold in Europe going to British buyers.

Smaller, over 100kg lighter and more efficient than its predecessor, the new Mazda MX-5 has gone back to its roots in a bid to offer genuine lightweight sports car thrills for buyers whose pockets aren’t deep enough for a Porsche 718 Boxster.

A removable fabric roof stows manually behind the driver and passenger, while the boot and cabin offer more space, despite the car’s smaller footprint on the road. Buyers can choose between 1.5-litre or 2.0-litre petrol engines connected to a six-speed manual gearbox and sending power to the rear wheels. The 2.0-litre version gets some extra kit including Bilstien dampers and a limited-slip differential.

The sharp new design is an interpretation of the latest Kodo design language, while the interior is brought right up to date with Mazda’s latest MZD Connect infotainment system.

Pencil in another W in the Miata’s column for being so light. With so little car to haul around, the 2.0-liter engine squeaks out relatively high EPA fuel-economy numbers and outperforms them in the real world.

We’ve devised our own fuel-economy test in an attempt to replicate how most people drive on the highway. Our procedure entails a 200-mile out-and-back loop on Michigan’s I-94 highway. We maintain a GPS-verified 75 mph and use the cruise control as much as possible to mimic the way many drivers behave during long trips.Both the Miata roadster and the Miata RF exceeded their EPA-estimated highway fuel economy figures on our test loop. The numbers of both Miatas fall just short of best in class behind their fraternal twin (albeit with a smaller engine), the Fiat 124 Spider.

The Miata’s engine revs eagerly and is powerful enough to deliver stirring acceleration. Exploring the engine’s high-revving personality is encouraged by the direct, easy-to-shift manual transmission. Even the optional automatic impresses, with quick shifts and sporty programming.

Although the Miata’s 155-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder might appear weak by modern standards, keep in mind that it doesn’t contend with much car. The engine thus feels appropriately zoomy, and its rev-happy nature is exaggerated on stick-shift models by a featherweight flywheel that lets it respond instantly to every twitch of your right foot. Aside from some midrange buzz, the engine sounds nice at higher revs and stands atop the class’s refinement ladder, above the grainy flat-four in the Subaru BRZ/Toyota 86 twins and the laggy, turbocharged inline-four that powers the MX-5’s mechanical alter ego, the Fiat 124 Spider.


The Miata is not a furiously fast car, but the driving experience is nonetheless supremely satisfying. Its handling limits are higher than those of many average cars, yet it’s the way it communicates available grip to the driver through progressive body lean and steering feedback that endears it most. Experienced drivers enjoy how easy it is to exploit the Mazda’s handling, and beginners can easily be taught to drive fast in one thanks to its balanced rear-drive chassis and friendly behavior.


Miatas ride firmly and can get bouncy over a quick succession of bumps. The mid-level Club’s firmer shocks and springs return the stiffest ride of the lineup, although no Miata rides poorly. The handling is eager, and the Miata changes direction promptly. We especially enjoy the light, tactile steering; it responds immediately and keeps the driver informed of what the front tires are doing. This is a fun car, plain and simple.

 BMW M2

Chunky rear-drive coupe has an excess of power to keep you amused

The 2 Series based M car from BMW is one of the most thrilling to drive. It’s not the fastest, of course, but it delivers its performance in a fashion that’s totally accessible.

The BMW M2 shares the 3.0 straight six with its M235i sister car, but the motor is significantly upgraded with internal components that include the pistons and crankshaft from the BMW M4, and it’s good for 365bhp and 500Nm of torque, which are big numbers in car that’s as compact as this.

0-62mph comes up in 4.5 seconds, which is only 0.2 seconds down on the M4, yet the M2 at £44k saves you £13k on the price of its bigger brother.

The M2’s chassis is equally delightful as the engine, with firm but acceptable ride, precise direct steering and great balance that make it relatively easy to balance the car’s attitude on the throttle on track days.

When you add in the M2’s undoubted practicality with adult-friendly rear seats and a generous 390-litre boot, the case for ownership gets even stronger.

Speed, for example. As is often the case with modern cars, the self-shifting M2 is quicker than its manual-shift sibling. An M2 equipped with the dual-clutch automatic transmission leads the way to 60 mph and through the quarter-mile by a significant 0.2 second. When you’re running in Corvette territory—4.0 seconds to 60 mph, 12.5 at 113 mph in the quarter-mile—two-tenths is significant. The auto-to-stick gap is more than a car length at 60 mph, stretching to more than two car lengths by the end of the quarter-mile.


The auto ’box wins against the clock because of a few inherent advantages. A computer is better than a human at managing launch traction, and the dual-clutch unit upshifts without interrupting power delivery. Also, it has shorter second, third, and fourth gear ratios. During our 30-to-50-mph and 50-to-70-mph passing tests, the gap is significantly larger (and not directly comparable) because the automatic nimbly grabs a shorter ratio while our procedure dictates to leave the stick in top gear.

The second benefit is potentially better fuel economy, rooted in the fact that the DCT has seven forward ratios versus six in the M2’s manual gearbox. The automatic has a 47-percent wider overall ratio spread attributable to its 0.67:1 seventh gear, which yields an additional 2 mpg, or 10 percent, in the EPA-combined mileage rating. Given the 19 mpg we logged during 1000 miles of mainly local driving, that 2 mpg, again, is nothing to sneeze at. It’s worth noting, however, that we averaged 20 mpg in the manual-equipped M2 we tested in California in February.

BMW’s dual-clutch automatic does cost an extra $2900 in the M2, which starts at $52,695 in base form. With or without the automatic, an M2 is a complete driver’s package with a zesty 365-hp 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six, a suspension tuned to please the most demanding wannabe racer, and some of the best brakes money can buy—opposed-piston calipers gripping huge vented and cross-drilled rotors. The only other embellishments on our test car were $550 for Long Beach Blue Metallic paint and a $1250 Executive package containing a heated steering wheel, a rearview camera, Park Distance Control (alarms to tell you that you’re about to smack something at the rear), and Active Driving Assistant (cameras to help you stay in your lane and avoid colliding with a pedestrian or the car ahead). With red-and-blue M-department stitching and coarse-weave carbon-fiber trim decorating the door pulls, dash, and console, this is one beautifully attired Bavarian. There’s even a measure of practicality, as the M2’s rear seat is surprisingly comfortable for a coupe, and the backrests split and fold to stretch the 14-cubic-foot trunk’s cargo capacity.

What the automatic brings to the party is versatility. Press the shift lever to the right and you’re in full-automatic mode with a mix of reasonably gentle shifts during light throttle and more assertive gearchanges at the 7000-rpm redline. Kick the accelerator to pass and there’s a feral whoop as the engine swings the tach needle to between 5000 rpm and the rev limit with a rowdy snarl through the pipes accompanying each upshift.

Pressing the shifter fore or aft puts the driver in command of gear selection. This requires rapt attention because upshifts are inhibited until the lever is yanked and nothing feels dumber than bouncing off the rev limiter. The third choice is to simply forget the shifter after the D/S position is selected; timely taps of the steering-wheel-mounted paddles signal the transmission when you need a higher or lower gear. Thanks to the miracle of modern electronics, there’s a perfect rpm-to-road-speed match and gearchanges click off in fractions of a second.

With 0.99 g worth of grip available, quick and responsive steering, and front buckets that comfortably restrain the occupants, the BMW M2 is a 200-proof driving elixir. The engine, chassis, body, and controls are all tuned to blast you down a back road or through a challenging track section with utmost poise and purpose. While stick shifts are great for polishing your heel-and-toe technique during eight-tenths driving, the automatic makes better sense when your hands are full of wheel and you need at least one braced leg to lock your carcass in place. For most drivers, perfecting but two pedals worth of footwork and gripping the wheel with both hands yields the fastest, safest path into a corner, across the apex, and out the exit. That said, now that you’re an expert on the reasons why this automatic can make sense, we promise to still respect you if you opt for the stick.

Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe

 Big twin-turbo V8 and a rear-drive chassis turn elegant coupe into a total headbanger

 

The V8 engines may be a little smaller these days, but the rumbustious character and howling vocals of Mercedes-AMG products still make the hairs on an enthusiast’s neck stand up.

The Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe is a case in point, with its 4.0 twin-turbo motor offering mighty performance, accompanied by that trademark AMG bellow that just begs the driver to keep their foot hard against the floorboards.

In S trim, doing so unleashes 503bhp and a seamless wave of thrust that delivers 0-62mph in just 3.9 seconds and just keeps going until you’re flat out at the limited 155mph maximum. There’s sharp handling, well-weighted steering and limpet-like grip in Sports+ mode, all of which help to make the C63 Coupe more than a match for the BMW M4 on a demanding road. Yet if you wind things back to comfort settings, progress is every bit as refined as the regular C-Class, apart from an – acceptably - firmer ride.

If you can afford the £77k S model, it really is a cracker of a coupe, but the standard car is highly

desirable too.

As with all muscle cars, the C63 S Coupe’s magic starts with the engine: A handcrafted 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 pushing a very excessive 503 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels via a seven-speed automatic transmission. The first time you mash the pedal and hear the roar of the V8, you’re immediately addicted. The coupe surges ahead with so much authority, roaring so loudly it borders on being vulgar, and it does so incredibly smoothly, firing off shifts you can barely feel. You’re hitting terribly illegal speeds in less time than it takes you to apologize to the cops (zero to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds; zero to 100 km/h in 4 seconds, to be exact).

The biggest difference in how the C63 feels over a traditional V8 muscle car are the seemingly instant-spooling turbos, which give the coupe more urgency at the lower end of the rev range. Peak torque comes online at a low 1,750 rpm and it keeps coming on strong for a while. I definitely wasn’t brave enough to keep pushing it to see when the thrust would drop off.

This should tell you how good the V8 sounds: Waiting at a stop light, a Maserati Gran Turismo pulled up behind me, and its menacing idle immediately got my interest. Maserati’s V8 makes some of the sweetest sounds in the automotive world, so I thought it would be fun to be “one of those people” and challenge it to a screaming match in broad daylight. Since I drove the C63 exclusively with the sport exhaust engaged, I fired off a few full-blown revs, not knowing how the angry Italian behind me would react to my German display of aggression.

But where muscle cars have a bad reputation for being a bit blunt, the C63 S Coupe counters that with something I like to call precise savagery, which seems oxymoronic. Considering this car’s attitude, you’d expect it to be a handful to drive, yet it never does anything you didn’t want it to and it never feels like it’s going to kill you — although you’d be wise to tread carefully. Although it does feel heavier than it needs to, especially up front, the precise, well-weighted steering, grippy tires, stiff suspension, and super sharp brakes make driving the car quickly fun without being scary. It acts like a savage, but in reality can be really tame with zero hints of being boring.

Porsche Cayman/Boxster

Mid-engined Porsche twins are driver's cars honed to perfection, whichever version you choose

The Porsche 718 Cayman and 718 Boxster serve up a lot of the appeal of the 911 coupe and convertible for a lower price. They can’t match the illustrious image of their famous brother, but are every bit as good to drive. Performance is amazing whether you go for the regular 296bhp 2.0-litre Cayman or Boxster or 345bhp 2.5-litre S models (although a recent move to four cylinder engines has upset the purists), while the sharp handling and responsive steering will raise a smile on any road.

Look at the dimensions on paper, and you’ll see the Cayman and soft-top Boxster are smaller than the 911. But the two-seater interior provides decent space and a near-perfect seating position. Impeccable build quality hints at how reliable these cars are, too – few owners have reported any problems.

Luggage bays in the nose and at the rear give this mid-engined car a boot size of 310 litres. And more appealing figures include lower insurance group ratings than for the 911, plus better fuel consumption. Emissions are lower, too, meaning cheaper road tax, and service intervals stand at 20,000 miles. Plus, Porsche dealers have a reputation for looking after their customers.

Porsche fits its 718 GTS models with the torque-vectoring feature, the Sport Chrono pack that adds a Sport Plus driving mode and a dashtop stopwatch, and an adaptive sport suspension as standard. These three items add a combined $5490 to the price of a 718 Boxster S or Cayman S. There’s also a standard sport exhaust ($2540 on the 718 S), Sport Seats Plus ($810, here wrapped in faux suede you can’t get on an S), and 20-inch black wheels that, replicated through the 718 S configurator, add a whopping $3020. And then there are the GTS’s signature black-colored accent items inside and out. Porsche tints the lenses for the taillights and front turn signals and paints the exhaust outlets, lower rear fascia, and badges black.

All in, Porsche charges $82,950 for the 718 Boxster GTS and $80,850 for the Cayman GTS. Those prices are exactly $12,100 higher than the 718 Boxster and Cayman S, a premium that nearly covers the included extras relative to the S. That is, spec a 718 S to match, and you’re about $12,000 into Porsche’s extensive option selection—only you’ll be short 15 horsepower and GTS script on the doors and trunklid. We know which choice we’d make.

Boxster III is an improvement in almost every way – more powerful, more comfortable, and even more wonderful to drive. The gearing’s quite long, so you need to get the engine spinning to make the most of it, but both 2.7 and 3.4 versions sound so lovely you won’t resent revving them out. The motorised fabric roof stows itself away in nine seconds, and can do so while you’re travelling at surprisingly high speeds – no need to pull over and get soaked while you’re waiting. One minor drawback is the power steering, which is now electro-mechanical rather than hydraulic. It’s a shade numb and lacking in feel, but then the chassis is talkative enough to make up for it. One of the world’s best sports cars.

Now in its third generation, the Boxster is longer, lower, better looking and utterly brilliant. There’s a 2.7-litre base model, a 3.4-litre S (which we’d say is a far better car than the £80k 911 Cabriolet) and a slightly more powerful 3.4 GTS. For more information on the Boxster, click on our further stories on the links below.

In order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, in 1992 the Porsche and Piech families hired Wendelin Wiedeking, an engineering and manufacturing expert, as chief executive. Wiedeking immediately eliminated overtime for company employees and convinced a majority of them to reduce their daily working hours. He also brought in a team of Japanese consultants who greatly streamlined manufacturing operations and implemented 'just in time' parts procurement. Addressing weaknesses in the company's product lineup, Wiedeking initiated an updated version of the Porsche 911 and made plans to introduce a new two-seater sports car with a completely original design and shape. In order to make it more attractive to U.S. customers, he promised that Porsche would sell the car at a list price of less than $40,000. The Boxster, as it was named, entered production in 1996. The new mid-engine car was an instant success, with the entire first year's production run sold out in advance. Porsche, after three years in the red, had broken even in 1995 and turned a profit in 1996. The company also discontinued production of its front-engine models 928, 944, and 968 during this recovery period.

In March 1998, at the age of 88, Ferry Porsche died, just two months before his company celebrated its golden anniversary. During this year Porsche also announced it would be forming a joint venture with Volkswagen to build suburban utility vehicles (SUVs), with an anticipated production date of 2002. Sales of the company's cars in the United States had climbed back to 18,200 for fiscal 1998, with total sales of vehicles worldwide topping 38,000. The company reported profits of DM 324.4 million on sales of DM 4.9 billion for the fiscal year. The popular Boxsters continued to be sold out in advance, and the company announced the introduction of a more powerful 3.2 liter, 252 horsepower version for the fall of 1999.

As one of the few remaining small, independent automobile manufacturers, Porsche AG hoped to remain competitive in a volatile industry. The Porsche and the Piech families had the financial resources to weather periods of economic difficulty, as well as an unwavering commitment to the survival of Porsche AG as an independent sports car manufacturer.

The first sports car bearing the Porsche name rolled out of a small test workshop in Gmund, Austria in June 1948. Back then, none of its founding fathers could have imagined the success story that more than one million descendants of this 'Porsche Number One' have written in the five decades since then. It is from this tradition that we draw the energy to face the challenges of the future. As we understand ourselves (and as countless people throughout the world perceive us), today, Porsche is a mature and vigorous company. Over the past fifty years, it has become the absolute definition of sports-car driving. What is more: despite the zeal for mergers that the large carmakers have displayed recently, we remain thoroughly convinced that the world's smallest independent volume-production automobile manufacturer has the potency and skill to maintain its independence in the future as well. This conviction is not mere hubris; it is based on the certainty that our company is distinguished by a different and very special kind of logic. Porsche is a vital piece of counterevidence that disproves the commonly held theory that a small company can only survive if carried along on the shoulders of a giant. We do not consider size alone, or size at any price, to be a desirable goal; our philosophy is aimed at keeping the company efficient and flexible, both for today and for tomorrow, in all areas.