Did the U.S. ever have a match for the Sierra Cosworth or Lotus Carlton in the '80s and '90s?

The idea of fast cars in America has pretty much always been the same: take the cheapest cars and stuff the biggest engines into them—that's the whole muscle car thing. Europe, on the other hand, leans more toward smaller cars with small engines and sharp handling. I guess that’s because the roads over there are a lot different than in the U.S.

Back in the '80s, Americans didn’t really seem interested in following Europe when it came to sports cars. They didn’t have much direction in that area. Even now, Americans still tend to prefer bigger cars with bigger engines. Sure, there were some turbocharged inline-4s here and there, but they weren’t the norm and didn’t really catch on. I think the whole idea of a “small, nimble sports car” just didn’t click with American carmakers—though I kind of get it. They were looking at performance from a different angle.

Yeah, American cars did get smaller and more fuel-efficient in the '80s, but that also made them way less powerful. I mean, a lot of you probably remember when horsepower took a nosedive. Even iconic muscle cars like the Camaro and Mustang were putting out way less power than they had just a couple decades earlier, mostly because of emissions regulations and stuff like that. I think that's a big reason why America never really ended up with its own version of the European-style sports car.

The Ford Sierra Cosworth is about as un-American as it gets—Ford of Europe built it around a 2-liter turbocharged engine. The Sierra RS Cosworth basically captures the whole vibe of ‘80s performance cars: turbocharged, loud, and totally in your face. It dropped in 1985 with a Garrett T3 turbo that gave Ford’s 2.0-liter engine some serious punch. In standard trim, it made 204 hp—around the same as most American muscle cars at the time, which needed way bigger V8s to hit those numbers. I guess American buyers didn’t care, so U.S. carmakers didn’t really build anything like it.

As far as I know, there was never a car like that in the U.S. because the priorities were just different. Americans didn’t really go for the whole European sports car philosophy—smaller engines, more tech, better handling. Back then, most American cars were still running V8s that were detuned to meet emissions standards. Europe didn’t have to do that as much because they never used big engines anyway. They just squeezed more power out of smaller ones.

Honestly, it kind of makes sense. The U.S. has long, open highways, and people often drive big distances, so buyers wanted roomy cars with lots of torque. I don’t think European-style performance cars really fit that lifestyle, and there wasn’t much demand for them here. So naturally, manufacturers didn’t bother making them.

The American market never really had a car like the Sierra because there was no need for it. People here preferred cars that suited their own roads and habits—big sedans or coupes with V8s or inline-6s. Importing or adapting something like the Sierra probably wouldn’t have made much sense. Plus, car specs and regulations vary between countries, so just because something was a hit in Europe doesn’t mean it would’ve sold well in the U.S.

It seems like Americans figured those kinds of cars would only sell in Europe, so there wasn’t much urgency to bring them to the U.S. at the time. It was really just a difference in taste, and in the 1980s, companies like Ford didn’t see the point in making cars like that. They just didn’t think there was a real need for them—the market was different. Kind of a shame, honestly, but that’s how it went.