The global automotive market has reached a critical inflection point in 2026. For decades, the evolution of the performance car followed a relatively predictable trajectory, incremental mechanical refinements, slight restrictions with emissions and increasing safety standards. However, the current era has violently fractured this continuum and we can see that in the market.
Depreciation of modern performance cars are at all time highs, while in parallel, classic values surge.
Are we at the precipis of the death of the modern performance car? Let’s break it down.
EU Mandatory safety technologies
In 2019 the European Union passed the new General Safety Regulation (GSR2) framework. The framework introduces several mandatory safety features for new vehicles designed to assist drivers and improve overall road safety:
- Advanced Emergency Braking (AEB): Automatically applies brakes to prevent collisions.
- Lane Departure Warning (LDW): Alerts drivers when they unintentionally drift out of their lane.
- Blind Spot Information System (BSIS): Warns drivers of vehicles in their blind spots.
- Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA): Helps drivers maintain safe speed limits.
- Moving Off Information System (MOIS): Alerts drivers to pedestrians or cyclists when starting to move.
- Driver Drowsiness & Alertness Warning: Monitors driver alertness and warns if drowsiness is detected.
- Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS): Monitors tire pressure to ensure optimal performance and safety.
To be able to sell cars within the EU, manufacturers would have to include all of these technologies on every new vehicle types from July 2022 and for all new registrations from July 2024.
Added weight
These safety controls are complex systems that require added hardware, such as radar arrays, LiDAR sensors, high-definition sterio cameras, electric steering, redundant braking servos, all connected via copper wiring to advanced computer modules that require heatsinks and cooling. Weight is the fundamental enemy of driving dynamics; it increases inertial mass, dulls transient response, necessitates larger and heavier braking systems, and demands wider tires to maintain lateral grip.
A vicious cycle is established wherein more weight requires more power to offset it, which in turn requires heavier cooling and drivetrain components. The BMW M5 stands as the ultimate case study in the destructive nature of regulatory-induced weight gain. The 2026 BMW M5 Saloon plug-in hybrid weighs 2,435 kg; This represents the weight of a traditional full-size SUV packaged into an executive saloon body. Despite boasting 671 horsepower, the power-to-weight ratio cannot mask the physical reality of managing nearly two and a half tons of mass through a corner.
Added faff
Beyond physics, there is the severe psychological toll of what the enthusiast community colloquially terms “added faff.” The European General Safety Regulation (GSR2) requires that specific Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)—including Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), emergency lane-keeping, and driver drowsiness monitoring—be activated by default every time the vehicle’s ignition is cycled.
For an enthusiast taking a high-performance vehicle to a winding B-road or a track day, the pre-flight routine now involves navigating multiple capacitive-touch sub-menus to disable intrusive nannies that actively fight the driver’s inputs. Automotive journalists have extensively highlighted how systems like lane assist often misread the road surface on narrow country lanes, aggressively steering the car toward perceived boundaries. Rather than enhancing safety, these systems actively diminish it by breaking the driver’s concentration, forcing them to look away from the road to interact with complex infotainment screens just to maintain basic control of the vehicle’s trajectory.
Electric steering
To integrate these mandatory active safety systems (specifically lane-keeping assist and automated parking), vehicles must universally utilise Electric Power Assisted Steering (EPAS). Unlike traditional hydraulic steering, which transmits micro-vibrations, camber changes, and variations in pavement texture directly through the steering column to the driver’s fingertips, EPAS uses an electric motor mounted to the steering rack to provide assistance. While manufacturers have spent over a decade refining EPAS algorithms, it fundamentally remains a simulated experience. The system must decide which forces to transmit and which to filter out, inherently severing the pure analogue connection between the driver’s hands and the front axle’s contact patch. For the purist, this loss of tactile feedback removes one of the most critical communication channels required for high-performance driving.
Cybersecurity
The most insidious, yet least discussed, byproduct of modern vehicle architecture is the regulatory mandate for advanced cybersecurity. Adding technologies that allow the car to be controlled by these modules introduces a new risk, imagine if a car with steering assist was compromised in a way that made the car actively steer towards obsitcals rather than away in order to cause a crash or even a terrorist attack.
Allowing computer modules this level of control introduces risk, and regulators are aware of that, so they have introduced strict cybersecurity requirements and regulations. We wont go into detail here, but essentially it requires each module to verify each other module in turn, again increasing the level of complexity of the modules, and in turn, added weight and cost.
The modern car has more complex systems built into it’s shell than a car production line of 15 years ago.
Emissions technologies
The regulatory onslaught extends beyond safety into environmental mandates. The European Union’s aggressive march toward zero-emission mobility has placed immense strain on the internal combustion engine. Strict Euro 6d and the forthcoming Euro 7 regulations mandate ultra-low particulate emissions and stringent noise limits. The same regulations that apply to a commuter car apply to a Lamborghini.
To comply with emissions regulations, manufacturers need to install Otto Particulate Filters (OPFs) into the exhaust. The OPF restricts exhaust flow, generating excessive heat, and—crucially smothering the acoustic signature of the engine.
The visceral, high-frequency scream of a naturally aspirated engine has been replaced by a muffled, synthetic drone.
When coupled with the UNECE noise regulations, which dictate maximum pass-by decibel levels, the emotional theater of the internal combustion engine is being systematically legislated out of existence.
First of all, lets be clear, clean air is a good thing. Nature is critical. And we do stand on a tipping point. However all these emission technologies have to be installed to super and hypercars that might only be driven one-thousand miles per year. The engineering costs spent on complying with these regulations for low-volume supercars are passed directly to the consumer; who are forced to pay for something that fundamentally they do not want. This pushed consumers towards classics two-fold.
Sales of new performance cars are tanking
The Emissions and EU safety technologies do not take the enthusiast into account. They are designed for commuter compliance, not driving engagement. As a direct consequence, the consumer market is actively rebelling, and sales of specific new performance cars are tanking. When a manufacturer entirely abandons the emotional core of its product to appease a spreadsheet of emissions targets, the enthusiast buyer will simply refuse to participate.
In combination all these extra systems increases initial cost of cars, resulting in .
It is not every new car
Despite the prevailing gloom of digitalisation and hybridisation, pockets of resistance remain. A select few manufacturers have recognised the immense premium that buyers are willing to pay for pure, unadulterated driving experiences.
The 911 GT3 has stayed true to what the market wants. Porsche has resolutely retained a high-revving, naturally aspirated flat-six engine and continues to offer a tactile manual transmission, and we see the market react; GT3s routinely command heavy premiums over their list price on the secondary market.
However it is not clear how long this will last, it feels like manufacturers taking this stance are on borrowed time, there will be a day when Porsche cant make the GT3 anymore, and that will be that. The impending sense of doom regarding the death of the internal combustion engine is driving a frenzy of purchasing behavior today. Buyers are hyper-aware that the regulatory noose is tightening, and the window to purchase a new, mechanically pure vehicle is rapidly closing.
Boutique manufacturers
Simultaneously, we have seen recent introductions of new analogue focused hypercars from the likes of Gordon Murray Automotive (with the T.50) and Pagani (with the Utopia). These boutique builders are explicitly rejecting the heavy hybrid/AWD trend, opting instead for lightweight carbon fiber construction, naturally aspirated V12 engines, and manual gearboxes.
Boutique manufacturers like Pagani and Gordon Murray Automotive that register fewer than 1,000 new vehicles per year are granted a “de-minimis” exemption, meaning they are completely exempt from the strict CO2 fleet average targets that apply to larger automakers. For context, manufacturers building between 1,000 and 10,000 cars per year, such as Ferrari or Aston Martin, can apply for a “small-volume derogation” that gives them a more lenient, customised CO2 target, but they still face far more regulatory pressure than the sub-1,000 group.
Second, regarding safety technologies and the “added faff” of the General Safety Regulation (GSR2), these hypercars are often homologated under “Small Series Type Approval” in the EU or “Individual Vehicle Approval” (IVA) in the UK. These specific low-volume approval pathways are designed to be more flexible than mass-market road homologation. They specifically exempt boutique builders from having to integrate heavy, complex safety mandates like standard Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and their associated sensors.
Unfortunately boutique builds of course come at a cost.
I propose a question
If you could buy a car new now that was from 2006, would you do it?
The appeal of classics
Values of classic cars are on a steep rise. We have just seen 38 existing world auction records broken at Monterey Car Week. The enthusiast is out there, and many new cars do not offer what they want.
The growth of the values of classic cars have steadily progressed with an entire change in attitude towards them. Classics used to be seen as plain old cars, but they are now in fashion.
