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Production vehicle

A Volkswagen assembly line in 1960 at Wolfsburg

Production vehicles or production cars are mass-produced models of automobiles offered for sale to the public and can be legally driven on public roads. Legislation and other industrial rules define the production vehicle within particular countries or uses. There is no single fixed global definition of the term.

Origin

The earliest use of the term production car being applied to motor cars, found to date, was in a June 1914 American advertisement for a Regal motor car.[1] The phrase was a shortened form of mass-produced or quantity-produced car.[2][3] The phrase was also used in terms of the car to be made in production, as opposed to the prototype.[4]

Early production car - 1912 Ford Model T Touring

At that time, production cars referred to less expensive vehicles, such as the Ford Model T, made in relatively large numbers on production lines instead of the more exclusive coach-built models. Now, the term has broadened to include hand-assembled vehicles and those made on production or assembly line. The main criterion is that there are a number of the same models with the same specifications.

There is no fixed definition of the number of vehicles or the amount of modification allowed outside of motorsports or national regulations or laws that determine what is or is not a production vehicle. For example, Guinness recognized a modified two-seat Jaguar XK120 as the world's fastest production car in 1949.[5]

Definitions

Guinness Book of Records

In 2010, the Guinness Book of Records awarded the record for the "Fastest production car" to the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. In 2013, their decision was appealed because the Bugatti was modified with its speed limiter turned off, a circumstance already known in 2010. Guinness, which had listed speeds by British cars with modified limiters as production car records in the 1990s, upheld the appeal and initiated a review of their production car definition. The investigation concluded that turning off the limiter was not a fundamental modification. Guinness reinstated the Bugatti record.[6][7] Guinness also reported some sources that at least 50 identical vehicles are needed to constitute a production car. Nevertheless, several models with less than fifteen units produced were certified for production car records.[8][9] In February 2014, Road & Track wrote that Guinness required 30 identical vehicles.[10]

Motorsports

1956 Chrysler 300-B Stock car

FIA definitions

There have been numerous disputes over what constituted production and modified cars when used in motorsports. Even under Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the exact definition of what was (or was not) a production car was unclear and controversial, which led to rules written in 1955.[11] Although the term is defined for particular types of vehicles, and that a certain number of a model must be produced to qualify as "production", it is another matter to enforce the rules.[11] For example, the 1968 FIA rules state that "production" for sports cars need to have at least 25 identical cars produced within 12-months and they were meant for regular sales to individual purchasers, Group B race series, a minimum of 200 cars were required for homologation, Group A, a minimum of 2,500 identical models have to be built in 12 consecutive months[12][13] However, FIA rules tend to allow a degree of modification from the original.

Utah Salt Flats Racing Association

Another example is the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association, which is concerned solely with the speed of a vehicle. The Association uses its definition of a production vehicle.[14] The Association allows quite a high level of modification over the original. In 2006 a Pontiac TransAm of John Rains Racing was classified as being the fastest production model (Bonneville D/PS class) with a top speed in excess of 297 mph (478 km/h).[15] Road tests of the same type of car available from the production line were incapable of anything like this speed and Popular Mechanics referred to the car as production based, which was probably a more accurate description. A similar racing association is the Dry Lakes Racers Australia which holds evenets on Lake Gairdner in South Australia. It also has a Production Car category with its own set of definitions.[16]

Stock car

A stock car, in the original sense of the term, is an automobile that has not been modified from its original factory configuration. Later the term stock car came to mean any production-based automobile used in racing. This term is used to differentiate such a car from a "race car", a special, custom-built car designed only for racing purposes.

The actual degree to which the cars conform to standard model specs has changed over the years and varies from country to country. Today most American stock cars may superficially resemble standard American family sedans, but are in fact purpose-built racing machines built to a strict set of regulations governing the car design ensuring that the chassis, suspension, engine, etc. are architecturally identical on all vehicles. For example, the NASCAR Sprint Cup series now requires fuel injection. The closest European equivalent to stock car racing is probably touring car racing. In the UK and New Zealand there is a racing formula called stock cars but the cars are markedly different from any road car one might see. In Australia there was a formula that was similar to NASCAR called AUSCAR, but it has been ended, and a form of touring cars has taken its place (this is known locally as sSpercars, featuring the Bathurst 1000 and Adelaide 500).

Land speed records

Chevrolet Vectra JL G-09

The FIA Land Speed Records Commission has regulations governing series-production cars attempting land speed records under its 2014 Appendix D - Regulations for Land Speed Record Attempts. Series-production cars fall under rule D2.3.2 and state that they must be:

Category B: Series-production Automobiles in production at the time of the application for the Record Attempt and either homologated by the FIA, or for which an application for homologation has been made to the FIA or recognised by the ASN of the country in which they are manufactured for National Records.[17]

The high level of modification allowed under these FIA's rules would tend to indicate that the cars are production based, rather than straight from an assembly line. For example, Category B Group III had a Dodge Dakota with a top speed of 217.395 mph.[17] Forums citing the Dakota's top speed indicate a standard production Dakota R/T would only reach about 125 mph.[18]

Production cars under the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) rules refers purely to the body class. Beyond that the cars are extensively modified.[19]

Legislation

Various countries have laws that define production vehicles. For example, in the United States Briggs Cunningham's business was classified as a hobby by tax officials because he did not manufacture enough of each model for the Cunningham automobile to be considered a production vehicle, but rather the IRS classified them as high-performance prototype automobiles built as racecars.[20] Legislative definitions tend to revolve around issues of safety or revenue (taxation).[21]

Modified cars

RUF CTR production car

Not all performance specialists are officially recognised and their cars are not usually referred to as production vehicles. The primary means of identifying a cars manufacturer since the mid 1980s has been the vehicle identification or VIN. The first three digits are the manufacturer or WMI identifier.[22] If the performance specialist is the manufacturer then its WMI identifier will be in the VIN. An example would be vehicles made or modified by tuning and manufacturing company RUF, which specialises in Porsche based vehicles. In general, if the RUF vehicle is a RUF modified Porsche then the WMI will be Porsche's (WP0), but if it is built by RUF then its WMI will be RUF's (W09).[23]

Limited production cars

These are usually vehicles where the production run is restricted to a specific number of vehicles. An example of this is the 1957 Rambler Rebel, a limited-production car where only 1,500 were produced.[24]

Statistics

Motor vehicle production statistics are available for countries worldwide, by country, make, and model. Production statistics by country and by model, as far as announced, are available for each make as well.[25]

From concept car to production model

Pre-production cars come after prototypes or development mules, which themselves may be preceded by concept cars. Pre-production vehicles are followed by production vehicles in the mass production for distribution through car dealerships. For example the Bugatti Chiron in which Andy Wallace achieved a maximum of 490.48 km/h (304.77 mph) on 2 August 2019 was described by Bugatti a "near production ready prototype".[26][27][28][29]

See also

Wikipedia

Three lists within Wikipedia and the discussions on their talk pages illustrate the difficulty in defining what a production car is. These are:

In the first two lists a production car is described as:

The third list used the same description until April 2018. It was changed to the following after a vote based on suggestions by a Koenigsegg employee :

The talk pages for all these lists continue to have ongoing discussions about the definitions.

References

  1. ^ "Hanke Motor Car Company advertisement". The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. 28 June 1914. p. 37. Retrieved 24 June 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  2. ^ "The Olympia Motor Show London". The Mercury. Hobart, Tasmania. 6 January 1920. p. 8.
  3. ^ "Cartoon". Auckland Star. Vol. 62, no. 302. 21 December 1926. p. 16.
  4. ^ "The Speedy Car (display Advertisement)". The Times. No. 42240. London, England. 25 October 1919. p. 17.
  5. ^ Hodges, David; Burgess-Wise, David; Davenport, John; Harding, Anthony (1994). The Guinness Book of Car Facts and Feats (Fourth ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 52. ISBN 9780851127682.
  6. ^ Wilkinson, Leo (15 April 2013). "Bugatti Veyron gets its 'fastest car' title reinstated". The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  7. ^ "And the world's fastest car is ... The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (Again)". 16 April 2013.
  8. ^ "Image of the Guiness World Record Certificate". venomgt.com. 10 January 2013. Retrieved 14 August 2024. The fastest time for a two-seater production car to travel from 0 - 300 km/h ...
  9. ^ Lloyd, Alex (5 April 2013). "At 265.7 mph, Hennessey Venom GT claims "fastest production car" title — but is it really?". autos.yahoo. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  10. ^ Nunez, Alex (24 February 2014). "The Hennessey Venom GT is the world's fastest carHits 270 mph on tarmac reserved for astronauts". Road & Track. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  11. ^ a b Charters, David Anderson (2007). The chequered past: sports car racing and rallying in Canada, 1951-1991. University of Toronto Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780802093943. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
  12. ^ "Annexe J – Article 255: Réglementation Spécifique aux Voitures de Tourisme (Groupe A) / Appendix J – Article 255: Specific Regulations for Touring Cars (Group A)" (PDF). fia.com. 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  13. ^ "Appendix J to the International Sporting Code" (PDF). FIA. 1969. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  14. ^ "Find Your Car Classification for Bonneville". Bonneville Racing. 21 April 2012. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
  15. ^ Barbee, Jr., Warren (1 October 2009). "10 Mega-Speed Cars @ Bonneville Speed". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  16. ^ "Section 5 Car Classes - 5.E Production". dlra.org.au. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
  17. ^ a b "FIA World Land Speed Records". Federation Internationale de l'Automobile. 10 June 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  18. ^ "RE: Top Speed for Dakota Sport? I got 117mph - Dodge Dakota Forum". www.dodgedakota.net. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  19. ^ Freiburger, David (24 October 2012). "Salt 101 - Bonneville Racing Guide". Hot Rod Magazine. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  20. ^ Rogers, Kane. "Racing In America". Briggs Cunningham. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  21. ^ "Type Approval for Cars". VCA. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  22. ^ "ISO 3780:2009 Road vehicles – World manufacturer identifier (WMI) code". ISO. 5 October 2009. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
  23. ^ "What exactly is a RUF?". www.rufregistry.com. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  24. ^ Foster, Patrick R. (2013). American Motors Corporation: the rise and fall of America's last independent automaker. Motorbooks. p. 40. ISBN 9780760344255. Retrieved 26 February 2014.
  25. ^ "Market Reports". marklines. Archived from the original on 8 October 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  26. ^ "Bugatti hits 304.77mph in a Chiron | Top Gear". YouTube. Archived from the original on 19 December 2021.
  27. ^ "Top gear reporting Bugatti Chiron breaking the 300mph barrier". 2 September 2019.
  28. ^ https://www.driven.co.nz/news/news/watch-bugatti-chiron-hits-490km-h-in-a-record-breaking-speed-run/ Bugatti Chrion hists 490kmh, retrieved 3 Sept 2019
  29. ^ Duff, Mike (2 September 2019). "Bugatti Chiron Passes 300-MPH Barrier with 304-MPH Run, Sets World Record". Car and Driver. Retrieved 2 September 2019.