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Search Data Reveals Mustang as Most Popular Sports Car, BMW i8 a Strange Second

Some people feel very strongly about a brand or even a model—just look at the Mustang vs. Camaro debate, occasionally disrupted by having the Challenger thrown in the mix as well—while others may have a harder time coming up with an answer when asked what their favorite car was.
Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 triple burnout 69 photos
Photo: Ford
Map of each country's most popular sports car
Even if the segment isn't exactly enjoying its best years ever, there are still plenty of models to choose from, each with its own undeniable appeal. That makes it pretty difficult to decide on a particular one for anyone who doesn't feel any special affiliation with a certain brand, which is why coming up with a ranked list of the world's favorite sports cars can be tricky.

British website Findandfundmycar.com found a clever way around it that looks to eliminate any personal bias and focus on the cold hard facts instead. We know very well that everything we search on the internet can be used for or against us—strangely similar to the wording of the world-famous Miranda Warning—but in the right hands, that kind of information can yield some very interesting results.

Findandfundmycar.com looked at the Google sports car-related search data from countries around the world and piled up a series of charts, including the world's top five favorites as well as each country's top model. Needless to say, the conclusions can be quite surprising. For instance, the Tesla Roadster is Iceland's number one, though we suspect the searches were aimed at the company's unreleased model rather than the Lotus Elise-based one.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Ford Mustang came out on top as the world's most searched-after sports car, even though it didn't hold the top spot in its home market, the U.S. That honor belongs to the Dodge Challenger, with the muscle car also scoring a very honorable fourth place overall at the worldwide level.

Arguably the most surprising listing has to be the BMW i8, with the German hybrid sports car coming just behind the Mustang by the smallest of fractions. We find it weird that the now-discontinued i8 scored so highly, especially when you consider how other very famous and respected models don't feature at all.

We're thinking mostly of the Porsche 911 range, though the Stuttgart-based manufacturer does have a few models featured—the Taycan, taking the number one spot in China and Zambia, and the Panamera doing the same in Angola and Kazakhstan.

At the end of the day, the methodology behind the study may not be entirely bulletproof when it comes to showing the country's favorite sports car, but it does offer surprising insight. For instance, we can find out the interest in BMW's i8 is far from dead, which should give the people in the Munich headquarters something to think about—and the rest of us, something to fret over.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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