G'day sport. Fancy a nice four-wheel drive?

Words – Otto Insider

Great sports lovers, us Australians. Footy, cricket, netball, hockey, soccer, swimming, running, jumping*. In fact, if there's a game on, we'll watch it, take part in it, and most times win it.

We're known around the globe for our sports obsessions. Pop into a bar in Azerbaijan and most likely when they find out you're from Down Under the conversation will inevitably turn to sport.

Personally, I blame the Australian Institute for Sport. In most countries, sport's a hit and miss affair, mainly due to inclement weather driving people to pubs rather than an athletic, energetic hour or three of running around in tight shorts. But we have made an art form out of winning on the field.

We've even had a couple of top runners in motorsport. Alan Jones and Mark Webber spring to mind, let along the Brabham dynasty, and most recently fresh-faced Casey Stoner. Indeed, if you had the chance to visit Phillip Island in October during the MotoGP you'd have been convinced every Aussie that draws breath was backing our boy against the world and was a confirmed sports fan.

So, it's interesting that Australians buy so few sportscars. That's real sportscars, not sedans with stripes, fog lights and oversized alloys. That's real sportscars, not convertibles which pretend to be sportscars because they have two doors and a folding roof. That's real sportscars not two-door coupes for mid-life crisis baby boomers shrugging off years of kid's car seats, back seat vomit and soccer taxiing.

According to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries' VFACTS stats, Aussies have laid hands on only 2630 sports cars this year. That's real sportscars, and a real shame.

Could it be that the incessant (and increasingly strident) 'Speed Kills' campaign has driven owning a sportscar from the list of socially acceptable mores, and banished it to purgatory along with drinking, smoking and sunbathing? Just to be clear here, I'm not advocating doing any of the above while driving.

It's all the more puzzling because we have some of the most enchanting roads in the world on our collective door-steps -- the icing on the cake being a marked (relatively) dearth of traffic.

Take note, soon-to-retire baby boomers with hours to burn, by and large, our exciting, twisty, scenic country roads are virtually empty mid-week. And they are within easy striking distance of major urban centres. Just pop up the road for a pint of milk, but take the long way there and back again. Bliss.

The delicate art of snicking the gear-shifter, slicing through bends and dabbing the brakes in a Mazda MX-5, surely one of motoring's purest devices of delight, appears to be less appealing (1107 sales YTD 06) than trundling along in a Ssangyong Rexton or Musso, since their combined sales outweigh the featherweight Miata.

The figures confirm that but 910 souls have tuned into the heavenly delights of the MX-5 this year, 0.1 per cent of all car buyers.

Come on people. Put the light back under the percolator and inhale the essence of Arabica!

Like most segments, thanks to Australia's proliferation of brands, the choice is huge. In the pure sports department, under athletic motor wear you'll find Alfa's Brera (172 sales YTD), Honda's near death Integra (23), and almost-a-classic-in-its-own-lunchtime S2000 (24), the aforementioned Emperor of sports, Mazda's MX-5 (910) and its kissing cousin with more doors the king of spin RX-8 rotary (601), and finally the hairy-chested Nissan 350Z (435).

Shift up a gear and an income stream or two and you'll find Audi's TT ruling the roost among cars for clubmen who fancy a fang (755 so far in 07).

The TT is shadowed by the Mercedes SLK (415) though in some guises it's perhaps too soft and in others too bloated to be fairly considered a surgical-quality road scalpel.

BMW's Z4 (202) and the Porsche Boxster (179) and roofed Cayman (125)  complete the big sellers, while Lotus is the most active bit-player in the up-market sports class with a trio of temptations: Elise (32), Exige (25) and Europa (8).

Oddities Caterham and Morgan have troubled the scorers but once this year, apiece.

Are supercars sportscars? Or just fashion accessories for the obscenely wealthy? Any supercars with numbers attached to the doors over Targa Tasmania weekend qualify, but many are too big and unwieldy to be real sportscars.

For the sake of fanatics let me tell you that Aston Martin outsells Ferrari, 132 to 110 so far this year, while Maserati has chalked up 101 sales of all models (granted the Quattroporte is not a sportscar by any stretch), Lamborghini 35, and Mercedes-Benz's most convincing sportscar, the SL, has 87 quietly satisfied owners.

The king of the $200,000-plus club is the Porsche 911, with 423 sold.

But if spirited acceleration, pure steering feedback, lightweight body and balanced chassis set-up, snickety-snick gear-changing and drop-dead gorgeous looks are the undeniable definitions of a sportscar then we must say that the MX-5, Honda S2000, Audi TT, Porsche Boxster and Cayman, BMW Z4 and 350Z represent some of the best options on the market.

Tally up their sales for the year and the result is a meagre 2630, or around a quarter of one per cent of the total new vehicle market in Australia so far this year. Aussies bought more Citroens in the same period.

So, while we seem to love sport, we're not head-over-heels for sportscars. In fact, by far the most popular form of motoring with sport in its name is the Sport Utility Vehicle, which probably accounts for even Land Rover moving more metal than sportscar retailers.

A fulsome 145,000 SUV's beat back the bush surrounding dealerships to roam the vast plains of suburbia and clog Coles' car parks in the first nine months of the year.

Hang your head in shame Australia. Or better still, get out there and buy a sportscar now. Before it's too late!

* Notice how I didn't mention rugby...

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