[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

All road cars are engineered to a price that keeps the bean counters happy.

You only need to see which manaufacturers were or are involved in motorsport and at what level to work out which ones are engineering lead.

To build on this a bit, I would state that most engineering led automakers either make very expensive cars or end up broke. When truly freed of constraints, an engineer doesn't give a rats ass about profit or cost. They just want to make the most gee-whiz geek out super widget on Earth, regardless of what they are designing. They want to make it the best, even when the customer won't pay for it. It's probably why many sports car makers end up broke.

A good example would be the Lexus LF-A. Lexus has stated that they will lose money on every car they sell, even though it is astronomically expensive at $375k. But it is an exercise in what can be done, an example of what is possible when there are no limits. Obviously Toyota/Lexus can afford to lose money on them, and they have a positive value as a halo car for the company.