[CatsEyes]

We could do with a philosopher in the house! A logical positivist, maybe. This whole definition-of-a-sportscar debate is goofy, and feels like a bad pub argument around midnight.

Clearly people use the word 'sportscar' in all sorts of different ways. One prevailing US usage - I have now discovered! - seems to be that it has to be a petite roadster. I presume that's an industry-based deifinition, aimed at the consmuer-market.

By which definition, as many here have pointed out, all sorts of cars that would be useless on a track (a base-line Audi TT, for instance) are 'sportscars'. But most of those that are track-able are not. And few race-cars outside Formula 1 are 'sportscars'. This is a definition that will sell cars, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

In this country I was always taught that a 'sportscar' is a car that was designed for track use first, and road use second. A car you can use in 'motorsports'. I believe that is how Porsche has used the word 'sportscar' in its literature over the decades. Indeed, it was the precise design brief of the 911: a car you track (successfully!) in the morning, and take you Grandma to do the shopping in the afternoon.

But then, pub-arguments around midnight usually turn into brawls, so I'm off home!