A sports car is a type of automobile designed for sporting performance.

While opinions differ as to the exact definition, most sports cars have two seats and two doors, and are designed to provide excellent acceleration, top speed, and good looks.

When it comes to actual Sports car racing and the needs for braking, maneuverability, low weight, reliability etc., the philosophies differ. While some brands like Porsche always have built cars that are raced, others like Lamborghini never were intended nor suitable for competitions. Most current so-called sports cars have to be considered luxury cars, with many options and high weight, as few customers are willing to sacrifice comfort or noise deafening.

Great emphasis is often placed on handling—the ability of the driver to remain in control of the car under challenging conditions such as when the car's tires begin to lose their grip on corners.

A car may be sporting without being a sports car. Performance modifications of regular cars, such as muscle cars, hot hatches and the like do not generally fall in the pure sports car territory.

A large, powerful engine is not required; many of the early British sports cars lacked a powerful engine and did not accelerate as quickly as, say, muscle cars, but were known for having exceptional handling characteristics due to their combination of light weight, carefully engineered/balanced chassis and innovative suspension designs. Lotus is often cited as an example of this approach. On tight, twisting roads, such a car has higher effective performance than a heavier, more powerful car with less cornering ability.

In many situations, the term "sports car" is used to refer to any car with more power or performance than is typical for cars in general. Often vehicles in the muscle car, performance sedan/saloon or grand tourer (GT) category are referred to as sports cars even though they tend to lack the light weight and excellent handling characteristics of a true sports car.