Road & Track: When did two-seat sports cars stop being “manly”?

[ilvtofu]

Pretty good read, my favourite line is the one about what men are supposed to be driving in 2014.

So, I’m in Louisville last week, and I’m rolling along Broadway. They say the LED running lights are bright, on Broadway, and now that the Lexus RX350 comes standard with those aforementioned ridiculous fad-of-the-week items, what they say is correct. There’s a perfect example of a Mazdaspeed Miata behind me, in that very deep red that you could get. It’s top-down in the fifty-degree weather, carving through the empty spots in the clogged lanes. Some Millennial is driving, grinning like an idiot.

“Look back there, at that hoopy frood in the Mazdaspeed Miata,” I said to my companion.

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Why is that guy driving a girl car?”

“Since when,” I said, “is the winningest car in SCCA history a ‘girl car’, particularly when it’s been treated to a light-pressure turbocharger and additional spring rate?”

“Since forever,” she responded, “and isn’t the Miata the winningest whatever in whatever because there are whole races that are nothing but Miatas, making it highly likely that a Miata will win?”

“Don’t count out the pace car,” I responded, “which at Mid-Ohio is the powerful yet grippy Honda S2000.”

“Whatever. That guy back there is in a girl car. Don’t tell me you’d drive one.” At that point, I wisely did not respond, because I would drive the hell out of a Mazdaspeed Miata.

The only reason I didn’t buy a Mazdaspeed Miata when they were new was because I already had a Boxster S, which is what my comp-sci teacher would have called a “superset” of the Miata. I suppose that’s a girl car too. I know that during the summer it’s extremely common for young fellows in Mustangs and whatnot to come racing up next to me on the freeway, only to recoil in annoyance when they realize that the long-haired brunette driving the silver Boxster with the Brey-Krause rollbar is, you know, me.

Sorry, boys.

But I digress. When, exactly, did two-seat sports cars fall out of favor with the Marlboro Man set? It has to be a fairly recent development, certainly more recent than, say, the Carter Administration. I know this because my father bought a brand-new, bright-yellow MG Midget in 1979, from the British Leyland dealer outside Baltimore, MD. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but my father is and was a very traditional American dude. His purchase of the Midget didn’t trail his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps by all that many years. He played baseball in college. I think he punched a guy once for just looking at my mom. We’re not talking about a Sensitive New Age Guy here.



Yet he didn’t feel a bit self-conscious driving a tiny British roadster around Washington, DC. And I mean tiny. If you think the current Miata is a little girly, you should have seen the MG Midget. It was nearly two feet shorter than the Miata and made less than half of the power enjoyed by owners of Mazda’s iconic roadster. It had a weird froggy face and a chrome luggage rack. It had the federally-mandated 85-mph speedometer and I don’t think it was capable of pegging it. I’m not sure how a car could be less masculine, really. I suppose it could have been pink.

Dad looked like a circus bear in the thing, but no more so than all the other dads, and all the other dudes, in Midgets and MGBs and Fiat Spiders and Triumph Spitfires and the various other low-power sporting droptops of the Seventies and Eighties. Nobody thought there was anything weird or wrong about grown men saving up their money and buying cars with the approximate footprint and power of today’s riding mowers. Heck, there was a whole group of dads who spent every weekend driving, and wrenching on, tiny little British roadsters. We called them the Sports Car Club of America and although the historical literature for that Club might be heavy on the 289FIA Cobras and the Corvette Grand Sports, in real life it was mostly two-hundred-pound men in eighteen-hundred-pound cars “powered” by the BMC A-series.

Many of the people who founded that club were servicemen who brought MGs and whatnot back from World War II. Nobody thought it was particularly unusual that the fellows who had invaded Normandy and driven a stake through the heart of the Nazi regime (check out “Saving Private Ryan” for what is probably a toned-down version of what actually happened) were passionately interested in 50-horsepower two-seaters that would have just about fit in the trunk of a proper Cadillac or Packard. Nobody back home ever said, “Hey, Bob, I realize you once took out a Wehrmacht pillbox with a P-38 can opener and a box of damp matches, but you sure look like a sissy behind the wheel of that MG TC.”

No, I think this whole manly-men-don’t-drive-little-sports-cars thing is a recent development, and a completely ridiculous one at that. Perhaps it’s the fault of the Miata, which was so reliable from Day One that no greasy hands were required for happy ownership. I’m personally inclined to blame that trio of German two-seaters that showed up shortly afterwards. The Z3, Boxster, and especially the SLK had such tremendous appeal to women that it got to the point that you couldn’t find a man who would admit to owning one. “Oh, that black Z3 over there, with the Dinan supercharger and the Hoosier tires on steamroller wheels and the ‘Airborne: Death From Above’ bumper sticker? That, uh, belongs to my mom.”

After a decade or so of those desirable-to-the-distaff-driver Deutsch droptops, the girls-drive-droptops stereotype that was initially conceived for the Volkswagen Rabbit “basket” convertible had expanded to include everything with a fabric roof short of the Dodge Viper. Porsche went through the trouble of making a Boxster with a metal top just so their owners could be spared the “shame” of having a fair-weather-friendly automobile. The resulting car, known as the Cayman, is just like a Boxster, only not quite as good, if you ask me. But you’d never know that from reading the Internet, where lavish praise is showered on the “additional rigidity” of the steel roof by people whose idea of performance driving is grinding around a freeway off-ramp at five over the posted limit, with underinflated tires.

Of course, the Cayman still has a bit of a twee reputation, because it’s related to the Boxster. The whole thing’s gotten out of hand. In fact, I’m not sure what men are even allowed to buy in the year 2014. We can’t have Miatas or Boxsters or anything like that, because those are for girls. But the opposite of a Miata, which is something like a GMC Yukon XL, is also for girls. In between is the Camry, which your mom drives, and the CR-V, which your wife drives, and the Aventador, which you cannot afford.

Enough. It’s time for American men to stand proud and admit that we’d desperately like to own a Miata or, as they say in the car-rental biz, similar. I’m going to form a group– Cool Alphas (referring to “alpha males”, of course) Preferring Roadsters Intentionally. That’s right, the group will be called CAPRI and any member who, in the face of hostile questioning, claims that we named it after the Euro Capri of the Seventies or the bubbleback five-liter RS will be ejected. Our spirit animal is that timid but torque-steer-mad little Australian import Ford brought over years ago just so everybody would understand how good the Miata actually was by contrast. Remember that Ford owned a third of Mazda back then. That’s right! It was a conspiracy!

You don’t need to actually own a Capri, or a Miata, or a Jowett Jupiter, to join CAPRI. You just have to be willing to spread the word: if the tiny two-seat sporting roadster was tough enough and cool enough for our great-grandfathers, it’s tough enough and cool enough for us. We’re taking masculine roadster ownership to a whole new level. The first meeting will be at the Dairy Queen next Thursday night. But we can’t stay out too late, because my girlfriend wants to watch that Zooey Deschanel show and I’m supposed to bring back Blizzards.

[mos_skeeto]

what... what im confused... they still make road and track?

[nsx042003]

interesting read haha I laughed at the fact that I kinda agree to both sides of the argument.

The miata, Boxster, Z3..etc...really don't look that masculine.

What other roadster is masculine looking?

The S2000.

I dunno...something about the lines of the mazda that makes it look less masculine that the honda. Maybe that's what it is. Not because it was a tiny roadster.

[sonick]

Meh, anybody who gets their jimmies rustled over the 'masculinity' of their car is just overly sensitive or insecure.

[MarkyMark]

A Miata has always been a chick car as long as I can remember. While growing up my sister always wanted one, while I wanted an 80's Camaro or Firebird lol

[supafamous]

When I picked up a Miata last year a friend of mine thought I bought it for my g/f and I still get comments from time to time that I'm driving a chick car.

But I don't care. If a chick car feels this good to drive then I'll wear a dress if I have to.

[bananana]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

A Miata has always been a chick car as long as I can remember. While growing up my sister always wanted one, while I wanted an 80's Camaro or Firebird lol

Location: Surrey

Checks out.

[MarkyMark]

Originally Posted by bananana

Checks out.

lol ur so funny

not brown though

[Hot Karl]

any real tuner head knows how amazing the miata is. had fun riding in a monster miata years ago, a ford 5.0 jammed into it.

the real chick car in my day was the vw cabrio convertible with the 4 round euro grill. but that was when some women knew how to drive stick and all men knew how to drive stick.

now they all drive autos and drink smirnoff ice. that's the real sign of where masculinity has gone.

[Mr.Stubbz]

fuuuuuck that, id take a NA miata in a heartbeat if i had the money for it.

so many people these days forget that cars these days arent just for showing social status or going from point A to point B but also to enjoy and have fun despite what they may look like, to a certain extent of course *coughtimpocough*

[twitchyzero]

aesthetics too round and not aggressive enough
audi TT
but who cares what others think if you're having fun

[320icar]

I owned one for years and WILL have another miata. A phaggy car or not it's leagues more fun than a civic or even my focus could dream to be
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[westopher]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

aesthetics too round and not aggressive enough
audi TT
but who cares what others think if you're having fun

I agree, cars with bubbly feminine features and smiley faces caused the stereotype. Not saying there aren't some mean and awesome looking miatas and other roadsters of the type but in stock form they look soft.




They need some work to be awesome.


Lol the TT almost cant be saved but this guy managed to.

[jing]

Miata crew checking in!
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[PJ]

Originally Posted by sonick

Meh, anybody who gets their jimmies rustled over the 'masculinity' of their car is just overly sensitive or insecure.

This.

If you like it, drive it.

One of my friends drives a Miata, and he is as "manly" as it gets. Like, straight up, blue-collar lumberjack looking son-of-a-bitch.

But admittedly, I do think the Miata itself does look a bit more feminine (something about the shape just makes it look a little too quirky and dainty), but at the same time, the ones that are more widely "guy accepted" like the S2000 and 350z come off as a bit too kiddish for me.

I had a 350z for a little while, but ended up selling it. It was fun while it lasted. Little 2-seater sportscars were never really my thing. I think I grew up too fast.

[sonick]

I just had a super hipster/ironic urge to put truck nutz on a Miata.

[FatalCloud]

along the same vein, I'm having a conversation with a coworker that the iphone is a girl's phone. I'd never buy one.

[Tone Loc]

I've always wanted a Miata. That being said, I'd rather have a hardtop or coupe version of the car as Vancouver weather kinda makes convertible ownership next to useless.

[twitchyzero]

Originally Posted by FatalCloud

along the same vein, I'm having a conversation with a coworker that the iphone is a girl's phone. I'd never buy one.

guys are generally more techsavvy and may try windows/android...but i wouldn't call the iphone a girly phone

on topic, although not a sports car/roadster..i'd say the 2000's new bettle is the ultimate women's car.

unless we're talk RSI

[meme405]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

but i wouldn't call the iphone a girly phone

You're right, its for old people too...

[westopher]

Talking about smartphones in a thread about cars isn't very fucking manly.

[MindBomber]

I can't imagine how insecure in his masculinity a man has to be to worry about a smartphone being too feminine. Fuck, that's not far off not talking to girls because they have cooties.

[twitchyzero]

amidoinitrite?

[ilvtofu]

Originally Posted by sonick

I just had a super hipster/ironic urge to put truck nutz on a Miata.

But... would it be JV or all balls?

[sonick]

Originally Posted by ilvtofu

But... would it be JV or all balls?

if I had a Miata with truck nutz, I would get more head than a guillotine basket during the French revolution.
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