I Have A Very Bad Feeling

[Danoff]

Like everyone else has said, they're just getting faster, more expensive, and more exotic.

However, I think people are rapidly getting to a point where things are "fast enough". You can buy some insanely fast cars, not just in a straight line but at the track, for reasonable prices. The accessibility of absurd speed is at an all time high, and it seems to be continuing to head that direction. I think quickly people are starting to come to terms with the notion that they don't need to go faster. Do you need P1 speed? No, almost nobody does. And that's not what it used to be like when a new supercar came out.

 

[Pupik]

Do I think supercars/hypercars/exotic cars are coming to a close? Not at all.

Could it happen...yes, but in different ways.

The economy changes, and sometimes only one or two all-new halo cars are released, but they're also designed to have 3-8 year production life spans; sometimes longer than that. There's always been lots of crazy one-off models, vaporware (although the term is relatively new) that never sees production, and proposed pipe dreams that only exist on paper...those issues have been around since the dawn of the automotive age.

Usually, we see the some of the same technology trickle down into less expensive models, since most auto manufacturers have greater profits and overall success in mass production rather than limited editions, unless the boutique manufacturer (Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ferrari, et al) have support from a larger manufacturer. There's still a few independents like McLaren, but they also had a lot of experience and know-how from decades of race engineering. In any segment of the automotive business, healthier and greater competition still means that each has to keep up, although at the end of the day, the customers mostly demand what they want.

Every so often, the press worries that we're going into a power crunch like the early-1970s, but they're kind of short-lived experiences. The economy can change rapidly, but there's still a small segment of the population with lots of money to spend. With changing regulations and laws, some companies wither or die off, or interests change. There might be a tremendous demand for extremely long-range battery power over power production, and that could be the next big thing. Or a vehicle that's absolutely super-strong, or ridiculously light. Or a car that's so technologically-imbued that it does things few could envision today. Those kind of things do change the industry around.

At some point, there's still a limited need to go even faster; there's far less open road, more drivers, a limited number of closed-off racing surfaces, and thus, transporting a car around for track time is a bit unwieldy.