Often on these pages, and indeed around the world of motoring, we use words like “sports car,” “supercar,” “hypercar,” and the like. But what makes a supercar different from a sports car? What makes a hypercar, well, a hypercar? These are the important questions to ask when talking about high performance cars, especially as we are already in the age of extreme electric performance and using hybrids to increase performance of otherwise ordinary cars.
Normal cars, if that is an appropriate term, are what you and I typically drive. These are your Toyota Camry models, the Ford Focus and Fiesta, the Honda Civic, the Kia Forte, and the like. Not exactly performance cars, they are there to move people from point A to point B, and with a few hot hatches and sporty versions of some, do so with a little fun along the way. These are the vehicles that also can be SUVs, CUVs, and the like, and vans and minivans, and basically anything that is designed with an eye towards gas mileage and affordability.
Sports Car
One rung above a normal car is a sports car. The generally accepted definition of one of these is a car that can still do all the functions a normal car needs to, but is designed with an eye towards handling, performance, and the actual enjoyment of the drive. These don’t have to be expensive cars either, as one of the greatest sports cars ever made, the Mazda MX-5, often goes for under $30,000.
The term has also been retroactively applied to the Regera, as it also produced over 1,000 kW of power on E85 biofuel. In fact, after the C8 and the CCX, the first two Koenigsegg cars, every engine that has come out of the Swedish hypercar factory has been capable of running normal 91 octane gas and E85 biofuel. Every single car currently in production at Koenigsegg, which includes the Jesko, the Gemera, and Regera, are all megacars. The only one that doesn’t make it purely on engine alone is the Gemera with its tiny 3 cylinder engine making 600 HP, but the combined 1,700 HP with the hybrid system easily pushes it into the stratosphere.
The next wave of hypercars that are coming up are already pushing into the power needed to be termed as megacars, so we’ll just have to wait and see if the term catches on. I, for one, hope it does. It’s easy to quantify, it has a built in number to define it, and honestly, it does have a bit of an aura of extreme speed and power about it. The biggest buildings in the world are called megastructures, projects that require thousands of people and billions of dollars are called megaprojects, so a car that makes over 1 megaWatt of power should be, logically, a megacar.
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