Car enthusiasm has always relied on comparison. Even now, when most young buyers cross-shop between a 1 Series, an A3 or a Golf, the underlying instinct is the same as it was half a century ago: to identify which car best defines a category, and which one pushes its rivals to be better. Rivalry gives shape to choice. It creates sides, stories and reasons to care, and it turns what would otherwise be a collection of unrelated models into a competitive landscape with its own hierarchy and logic.
Manufacturers have long understood this. A car rarely becomes iconic in isolation; it needs something clear to measure itself against. Rivalry forces clarity of purpose. It encourages engineers to sharpen what makes their car distinctive and invites designers and marketers to build an identity strong enough to stand up to someone else’s. Without a rival, a car risks becoming a mere product. With one, it becomes a protagonist in a story.
This dynamic is hardly unique to the car world. Sport depends on it, as does film, literature and even politics. Rivalries create drama, drive improvement, elevate achievement and give meaning to small differences. Remove the Joker and Batman loses definition; strip away Prost and Senna’s legend becomes diminished. In cars, the effect is the same: a Mustang means more because a Charger exists, just as a Skyline meant more because a Supra did too.
