Why are European manufacturers so dominant?

[Ryan81]

So, it just occurred to me that throughout the decades, European performance cars have radically outnumbered and outperformed their US and Japanese counterparts.

For instance, let's take the 1990s as an example. I can't remember any American supercars that could outperform the likes of the XJ220, F1, GT2, Diablo, EB110, F50 etc. The only one from the early to mid 90s that comes to mind is the Corvette ZR-1 C4.
Ford had the GT90 but it was only a concept. The Chrysler RT/10 looked and sounded nice but handled like a sleigh on rails. Wasn't until the turn of the millennium that Dodge produced the Viper GTS and Chevrolet the Corvette C5 Z06.

As for JDMs, the only one that comes to mind is the NSX Type R, excluding the likes of the Nismo 400R etc which was just a one-off and even then, non-competitive alongside the European powerhouses above.

I understand that they had less horsepower and perhaps weren't trying to match the likes of Bugatti, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini etc but my question would be, why?

Even the 70s and 80s were completely devoid of serious competition from the US and Japan. In the 60s, Shelby produced the awesome Cobra 427 S/C. But that's it, just another one-off.

Even to this day, the Europeans are way out ahead. Again, why?

 

[Tornado]

It probably helps that Europe barely had emission standards until the late 90s; but a lot of it is because the performance tier above upper spec Corvettes and the Viper requires engineering investment that wouldn't carry over into the rest of their automotive range for the US automakers. Same for Japanese marques. The fact that half of the examples you listed were sales bombs and/or were attached to perpetually bankrupt companies probably makes it the smart play.


I do have one note, though:

XJ220

Diablo

I think you'll find that American hands were all over these two cars.




The former is in fact how

Ford had the GT90

 

[phillgt2002]

It probably helps that Europe barely had emission standards until the late 90s; but a lot of it is because the performance tier above upper spec Corvettes and the Viper requires engineering investment that wouldn't carry over into the rest of their automotive range for the US automakers. Same for Japanese marques. The fact that half of the examples you listed were sales bombs and/or were attached to perpetually bankrupt companies probably makes it the smart play.


I do have one note, though:


I think you'll find that American hands were all over these two cars.




The former is in fact how

This was pretty much most of what I was going to say. The U.S. and Japan had stringent emissions during the 70s and 80s, and Japan ended up building cars that were able to meet those standards.